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The Bible 
and Missions 




By 
HELEN BARRETT MONTGOMERY 



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HELEN BARRETT MONTGOMERY 

Author of Four United Study Text-books, Lecturer on All 

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THE BIBLE AND 
MISSIONS 



BY 

HELEN BARRETT MONTGOMERY 




"This is the Book that 'with authority* 
Comforts, commands, both wounds and heals 

the heart; 
Not like a poem, or a history. 
Nor yet like the flute and lute with all their art, 
What lack I? do I tremble? weep? or frown? 
Come, let me take this sovereign Bible down." 

Sarah N. Cleghorn, in American Magazine. 



Published by 

The Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions 

West Medford, Mass. 



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Copyright, 1920 

The Central Committee on the United Study 

OF Foreign Missions 



NOV 10 1920 



The Vermont Printing Co. 
Brattleboro, Vermont, U. S, A. 



©CU601544 

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FOREWORD 

The Central Committee on the United Study 
of Foreign Missions celebrates its twentieth anni- 
versary by the publication of the text-book, The 
Bible and Missions by Helen Barrett Montgomery. 
In these days of reconstruction of Church and State, 
it is important that we come back to the authority 
in the Word of God for our great missionary enter- 
prise. Plans of men, however wise, change with the 
changing years and with crises in history, but the 
plan of God is eternal. We rest our study this year 
on his own missionary message. The year 1920 
has been appointed by Bible societies in Great Britain 
and America as Bible Year, which gives an added 
reason for a careful study of this subject and a wide 
effort to secure a more general use of the Bible 
throughout the world, especially in lands and among 
peoples who have never had the opportunity to read 
the Word of God. 

The Committee is indebted to the American Bible 
Society for many of the unique and valuable illustra- 
tions in the book. 

Mrs. Henry W. Peabody, Chairman, 
Miss Olivia H. Lawrence. 
Mrs. Frank Mason North. 
Mrs. James A. Webb, Jr. 
Mrs. a. V. Pohlman. 
Miss Alice M. Kyle. 
Deaconess Henrietta Goodwin. 
Miss Grace T. Colburn, Secretary, 



CONTENTS 

Page 
PART ONE 

Chapter I. The Missionary Message of the Old 

Testament 7 

Chapter II. The Missionary Message of the New 

Testament 54 

PART TWO 

Chapter III. Every Man in His Own Tongue 96 

Chapter IV. The Travels of the Book 141 

Chapter V. The Influence of the Book on the 

Nations 167 

Chapter VI. The Leaves of the Tree 198 

A Brief Reading List 229 

Index 233 

list OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Faci>7G 
Page 

Helen Barrett Montgomery , Frontispiece v 

Thirty Million Bibles 9 si/ 

Mandarin Company of Revisers, 1915, China 24 j/ 

Girls of Kemendine School, Burma 32 ^ 

Buddhist Woman's Society 41 ^ 

Scripture Committee of the North Siam Mission .... 56 

Telegram Sent by President of China 73 

Hon. Wang K'ai Wen, Peking, China 88 

Mr. Matsuura Recommending God's Word 105 -^ 

Selling Bibles in the Philippines 120 

Letters from China 137 - 

The Old, Old Story in the Philippines 152 *'"' 

Miss Anna Johnson — Mr. Wm. McPherson 161 • 

The New Phonetic Script, China 169 '. 

Women of China Learning to Read 182 

Amelia Josephine Burr 194 



THE BIBLE AND MISSIONS 
PART ONE 

OUTLINE OF CHAPTER I. 

aim: To show that the Bible is God's missionary text-book; that 
the missionary message, although most clearly revealed in 
the New Testament, is woven into the fabric of the Old 
Testament, and definitely proclaimed in its every part. 

I. THE MISSIONARY CHARACTER OF THE BIBLE SEEN IN ITS ES- 
SENCE AND SUBSTANCE. 



Its topics the great fundamentals of human thought. 



2. Its style, uniquely adapted to translation. 

3. Its reticence; the absence of crude cosmogonies that 
weigh down other religions. 

4. Its psychology, a picture gallery of essential humanity. 

5. Its social passion, humane legislation, and messages of 
the prophets. 

6. Its literary greatness, impossible to exhaust or outgrow. 

7. Its doctrine of God. The infinitely high, yet infinitely 
near. 

All these and other qualities fit it to be the Book of Man. 

II. THE MISSIONARY CHARACTER OF THE BIBLE IS SEEN IN ITS 
POSITIVE TEACHINGS. 

God's Plan of Salvation, laid down in the Old Testament. 

1. Missionary elements in the Law. 

a. Its Theism. d. Its prophetic note. 

b. Unity of mankind. e. The Angel of the Presence. 

r Tragedy of Israel's 

c. Enlarging circles of blessing i failure to apprehend 

[ trusteeship. 

2. Missionary Elements in the Historic Books. 

a. Discipline of the Chosen People. 

b. Widening interests seen in Solomon's Prayer. 

c. God's gracious caUing of those without the Law. 



common to the prophets- 



The Bible and Missions 

Missionary Message in the Poetical Books. 

a. Poets the true seers and revealers of God's wider 
purposes. 

b. Ruth and Job illustrations of wider vision. 

c. Psalms, the universal hymn book. 

fThe Heart of God. 

d. Particular messages of the Psalms<^ The Messianic 

[Kingdom. 

e. The Psalms in the life of Jesus. 

Missionary Message of the Prophets, 

a. Missionary conceptions 
Israel, God's trustee for man. 
Unity of human history. 
God's disciplinary Providences. 

^The Coming Kingdom. 

b. Missionary Message of individual prophets. 
Amos, God's righteous reign over all mankind; true 

religion spiritual. 

Hosea, God loves his people. 

Micah, Forecast of universal peace. 

Isaiah, God's righteousness; Providential government 
of the world; vision of the Suffering Servant and of 
Redeemed Humanity. < 

Jeremiah, his call; a type of Christ. 

Ezekiel, The first gospel for the individual; the hireling 
shepherd; the healing waters. 

Haggai and Zechariah, Truth to go forth from Jerusa- 
lem; Messiah to speak peace to the heathen; his 
dominion to the ends of the earth. 

Habbakuk, God's making the wrath of man to praise 
him; the glory of God to cover the earth. 

Malachi, God's name revered among the heathen; the 
coming of the Messenger. 

Daniel, The Everlasting Kingdom of the Son of Man. 

Joel, The outpouring of the Spirit. 

Jonah, God's thrusting forth his messengers; God's 
free grace over all his works. 

III. SUMMARY OF GROUND COVERED. 



THE BIBLE AND MISSIONS 
CHAPTER I. 

THE MISSIONARY MESSAGE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 



"That Book is not the book of a nation, but the Book of nations, because it 
places before us the fortunes of one nation as a symbol unto all the rest, because 
it connects the history of this one people with the origin of the world, and by a 
series of earthly and spiritual developments, of facts necessary and accidental 
continues it unto the remotest regions of the farthest eternities." Goethe. 



The Missionary: The Missionary has a Book which he 
his Book. takes with him on all his wanderings; 

unless, in truth, it be the Book, which drives him 
forth on his great adventures. Certain it is that the 
biggest word for missions is the one spoken by the 
Book. Underneath all the smaller special appeals 
of the age, of races and nations, of terrible sufferings 
and appalHng needs, is the great diapason of the 
Word — "Go ye; I am with you." 
God*s Mission Reading the Bible meticulously for 
Text-book. proof texts and argument, it is possi- 

ble to escape its unmistakable drift; reading it in 
the large and simply as it was written, its mission- 
ary message is inescapable. For the Church to re- 
capture this great Word is to regain that *first, fine, 
careless rapture' in which the Early Church set 
forth to win the world. If, leaving all little mission 
studies for a time, we could bend our minds and 
souls and strength to the study of God's Mission 
Study Text-book, the world could no longer fetter 
the Church. 



8 The Bible and Missions 

Missionary Char- The missionary character of the 
acter of the Bible Bible is clearly seen in two great 
Twofold. categories; (i) in its essential char- 

acter; (2) in its expressed purpose and plan. 
I. The Bible Mis- The Bible is in its very subconscious 
sionary in Essence substance missionary. Not only be- 
and Substance. cause of what it advocates or pur- 
poses or states, but because of what it is, the Bible is 
the great Missionary Charter of the Church. Just 
as in measuring a man it is not so much his conscious 
words and deeds that count, but his very atmosphere 
and selfhood. The Bible being what it is cannot avoid 
becoming the Book of Man. It is foreordained to 
universality. 

Take its topics. They are the great fundamentals 
in which all men alike are concerned; life and death, 
sin and righteousness, God and the soul. It sets out 
to answer questions that rise in the soul of man, 
savage and philosopher, saint and sinner, white and 
black alike, and will not be silenced. Whence am I? 
What does life mean? Where am I going? To what 
purpose is it all? Its answers have a quiet authority 
like the mountains, which do not ask our poor 
consenting. 

Consider its style: so styleless that the Book can 
be translated into any language without loss of ener- 
gy; so devoid of ornament that its poetry in all its 
naked beauty is poetry to Occident as to Orient; so 
free from all self-consciousness or pose that its narra- 
tives need depend on no adjective or descriptive 
phrase to heighten their effectiveness or drive home 
their point. Some of the most precious treasures of 
the world's literature are pale or tasteless in trans- 



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Message of the Old Testament 9 

lation, because their beauty is so largely in the 
marriage of thought to sound and rhythm. The 
Koreans say of the Bible, **It can not be so beautiful 
in any other speech as in our Korean. It speaks to 
our souls." 

Of no other great literature can it be said that in 
translation it actually supplants the original in the 
world's esteem. 

Great in its reticence the Book is adapted to a long life 
of continued influence. Consider the handicap which 
any sacred hterature written in the world's childhood 
has to surmount; those impossible cosmogonies of the 
Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans; that central 
mountain of Buddhism with its seven encircling 
ocean belts, each millions of miles in circumference; 
that Chinese view of the great Demiurge at work on 
his world: 

"His breath made the wind, his voice the thunder; his left 
eye the sun, his right eye the moon; his legs and arms and fingers 
and toes into the four quarters of the earth; his blood into the 
rivers; his muscles into the strata of the earth; his flesh into the 
soil; his hair into the constellations; his skin and hair on it into 
plants and trees; his teeth and bones into the metals; the sweat 
of his body into rain, and the parasites upon him impregnated by 
the wind into the human species." 

The Three Religions of China, 

Soothill, Page 177. 

Over against these and all the other puerilities 
and coarsenesses with which the great ethnic Scrip- 
tures are weighed down, place the austere beauty of 
the first chapter of Genesis : 

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth." 

The Bible has all the simplicity of the early ages. 



lo The Bible and Missions 

It does not attempt to express in scientific language 
what would have been incomprehensible for many- 
centuries; but in what it does say there is a restraint, 
a reasonableness, a greatness, that enables it to hold 
its quiet way unashamed, while knowledge is in- 
creased in the earth. The student in India, Malay- 
sia, China, or Japan who must study Geography or 
Astronomy or History, finds his confidence in his 
sacred books undermined. In Christian lands the 
demolition of our false conceptions about the Bible, 
under the impact of fresh knowledge, only serves 
to bring into fresh relief the unshaken Book. In 
its omissions, no less than in its statements, the 
Book shines by contrast. 

In its psychology the Book is ageless. The heroes 
of ancient literature seem dwarfed by the centuries. 
Agamemnon, ^neas, Beowulf lose their power 
to stir our imagination or our admiration. But 
about the life stories of the Bible there is a per- 
ennial, a universal charm. The men and women of 
the Bible are modern, ageless. In their temptations 
we trace our own; in their weaknesses and in their 
strength they are contemporary. With grave detach- 
ment the Bible sets them before us, glossing nothing, 
extenuating nothing, boasting nothing. "There they 
are, my men and women, bone of your bone, flesh of 
your flesh; look at them and ponder on the swift 
and solemn trust of life." 

A picture of This psychology of the Bible seems 

hiimanity. never artificial. They are no puppets, 

but real folks, who react as we react under given 
stimuli. Hence their never-failing charm, their sup- 
ply of sermonic material to fresh generations of 



Message of the Old Testament ii 

sermonizers, their attraction to a ring of African 
faces lifted up by the flickering camp fire or to a 
college audience listening with delight as the foibles 
of Jacob, the supplanter, are subtly analyzed by 
some keen lecturer. Not least interesting on the 
great Bible canvas are those background faces, those 
individuals, those real persons whom you recognize 
in Paul's thumb-nail sketches at the end of his 
letters. It is in this deep human interest that the 
Bible meets and vanquishes the greatest; so 
long as the most vital study for mankind is man, 
the Bible's title to universal love is sure. It is full 
of personalities, deep and rich. It develops personali- 
ty wherever it is read. 

In its social passion the Bible stands forth su- 
preme. In ages when the serf and the slave had 
no spokesman, the Old Testament gave the laws 
from a God who cared. When women and children 
were still considered as 'impedimenta^ in the pil- 
grimage of the race, in the Bible a tender concern, a 
growing respect were visible. The prophets thunder- 
ed for the poor in messages that are today tracts 
for the times, and in the New Testament the flowers 
of brotherhood bloomed in the world's darkness. 
No other sacred book even approaches the Bible 
in this concern for social values and social obligations. 
The golden The outstanding illustration of this 

thought of the social point of view is found in the 
Kingdom. thought of the Kingdom of Heaven 

that runs through the prophets. Whether they write 
to a nation established in its own land or to bondsmen 
scattered in captivity, the thought of the righteous 
rule of God among men increasingly dominates the 



12 The Bible and Missions 

prophets. They are social reformers with a ven- 
geance. Across the centuries their denunciations 
still throb with passionate protest. ''These men were 
so alive to God," says Rauschenbusch, **that they 
beat their naked hands against jagged injustice and 
inhumanity." The Bible alone of sacred books 
fervently cries aloud to a God of righteousness, whose 
will it is to set up justice in the earth. This one 
characteristic has made it instinctively feared and 
suppressed by all autocracies, religious and political, 
and beloved of the common people in every land. 

The Bible is great literature. Big books make 
their way. They fly over seas, they tunnel the 
mountains, they bridge the centuries. By the com- 
mon consent of man the Bible is supreme as litera- 
ture. In its poetry of grandeur and of tenderness, in 
its sublimity and terror, in its tragedy and doom, 
in its lofty teachings and profound philosophy, in 
its story of the matchless life and words and deeds 
of Jesus of Nazareth, the Bible has a unique claim 
to be the Book of books, the Book of man. 

In its presentation of the character of God lies 
the final claim of the Bible to universal interest. 
It is the conception of God which finally makes or 
breaks a man or nation, as man or nation tends to 
be conformed to the likeness of the being worshipped. 
The whole claim of the Bible to universal reverence 
might well be staked on this alone, the God whom it 
reveals. 

The Infinitely Beginning with the vague and inade- 
High is Infinitely quate ideas of God held by a primi- 
^^^^' tive people, there is the steady edu- 

cation of the nation in the worship of one only God, 



Message of the Old Testament 13 

infinite in power, awful in holiness, perfect in right- 
eousness. Other books have enshrined great hymns 
to the Creator and have not unworthily sung of his 
power and glory; but in no other book is there found 
in such combination and such clearness the idea 
of an infinite Creator who summons to Jiimself not 
only man's worship, but his reason; who upholds 
and forgives as well as judges; who demands justice 
as well as reverence, and whose awful purity calls for 
purity of life and purpose in his worshippers. 
Failure of Ethnic The Hindus have seen God's im- 
Faiths in their manence, but not his transcendence, 
doctrmeofGod. J^^^ j^^ jg ^'^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^Jg ^^l_ 

verse, and so have lost themselves in the fogs of 
pantheism. Failing to perceive his unity, the Greek, 
the Roman, the Egyptian, and the Indian faiths 
sank into the debasing superstitions of idolatry. 
In all literature there is not more biting satire than 
is poured upon the idolater in Isaiah and the Psalms. 
(Isa. xl; Psa. cxv.) 

God's holiness and The clear teaching in regard to the 
God's goodness, holiness of God has made impossible 
the divorce between religion and ethics wherever 
the Bible is adequately taught or obeyed. The 
thought of God's holiness is supplemented by that 
loftiest and sweetest thought of God, clearly revealed 
in Jesus Christ, his Fatherly love and compassion. 
God is light! God is love! The Book that reveals 
such a God cannot be kept from becoming the Book 
of the race. 

The Book begins In point of fact, the essential char- 
its journeyings. acter of the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures was actually in process of beginning the Bible's 



14 The Bible and Missions 

missionary pilgrimage years before the coming of 
Christ, when the Septuagint translation into the 
Greek language was made. This is the first instance 
in history in which the sacred books of one nation 
were translated into another language, and in trans- 
lation far outstripped the original in circulation and 
influence. 

II. The Bible is While the message of the Bible to 
Missionary in its mankind is thus presupposed in its 
positive teachings, essential nature and character, we 
are not left without the most clear and positive mis- 
sionary teachings. These are found in germ in the 
Old Testament and are fully developed in the New. 
This is what we should expect, as the Old Testament 
finds its completion and justification in the New. 
What is not so clearly evident regarding the plan 
while the foundation is being laid and the walls are 
rising, is evident when the complete structure is 
inspected. 

God's Plan of Jesus himself rejoiced in spirit as 
the Ages. the deep things of God dawned on 

men in the springtime of the Coming Kingdom. 
"I thank thee. Father," he cried, ''that thou hast 
hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and 
revealed them unto babes." There is a sense of 
rapture in the letters of Paul, as he contemplates 
God's Plan of the Ages now so clearly seen in Christ. 
For there is a Plan, although the phrase '*plan of 
salvation," so popular in times past, is now seldom 
heard. The trouble is not with the phrase or the idea 
behind it, but with its misapplication and misuse. 
We do not send out missionaries to proclaim a ''plan 
of salvation," but Christ and the power of his 



Message of the Old Testament 15 

resurrection. We are not saved by a "plan," but by 
a Person. We do not exhibit the working drawings 
of our house; we show our friends through our 
home; nevertheless the architect had a plan and the 
builder followed it. 

John and Paul see So there IS an august Plan of Salva- 
thePian. tion on which all Scripture is builded 

together for an habitation of the spirit of man. John 
catches a gleam of the vast design when he speaks 
of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world. Paul's great intellect is incandescent as the 
glory of God's purpose dawns upon him. Human 
language bends and breaks under the weight of 
glory with which he loads it as he tries to put into 
words, in the opening chapter of his letter to the 
Ephesians, his vision of the Plan. 

"For this reason," so he begins in the third chapter to sum up 
the mighty argument of the first and second chapters, "I, Paul, 
the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, for surely 
you have heard of the stewardship of the grace of God entrusted 
to me for you; and how by direct revelation the secret truth was 
made known to me, as I have already briefly written to you, by 
reading which you can judge of my insight into that secret truth 
of Christ which was not made plain to the sons of men in former 
generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to his holy 
apostles and prophets, namely, that in Christ Jesus the heathen 
are one body with us and are co-heirs and co-partners in the Prom- 
ises through the gospel. It is of this gospel I became a minis- 
ter according to the gift of the grace of God bestowed upon me 
by the energy of his power." 

"To me who am less than the least of all saints has this grace 
been given, that I should proclaim among the heathen the gos- 
pel of the unsearchable riches of Christ, and should make all 
men see the new dispensation of that secret purpose hidden from 
eternity in the God who founded the universe in order that now 
God's manifold wisdom should, through the church, be made 



i6 The Bible and Missions 

known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly sphere, 
according to his eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus 
our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access in the confidence 
of his faith. 

The scarlet thread This Plan of God SO clearly to be 
of Scripture. traced throughout the Scriptures is 

indeed a mystery. Here are writings separated by 
centuries, composed under circumstances the most 
diverse, written by men of varied gifts and capaci- 
ties, yet all so assembled about one master idea that 
no sense of violence is felt when all are gathered 
together in one volume and called "The Book." 
There is no such underlying unity discernible in 
any other sacred writing; not in the Koran, written 
by the one prophet Mahomet; not in the multi- 
tudinous and contradictory scriptures of Hinduism; 
not in the Hina-Yana and Maha-Yana of Buddhism. 
Paul did not invent the plan; he discovered it. 
The Bible, the To sketch a plan so vast in a few 
record of God's words is well nigh impossible; but 
search for Man. ^^^^ '£ inadequate it is still true to 
say that the Bible records God's search for man for 
the purpose of redemption and fellowship with 
himself. Other sacred books record the story of 
man's search for God. The Bible reverses the pro- 
cess. From first to last it is Christocentric. In the 
Old Testament may be traced the first working draw- 
ings of the Plan; the promise in the garden; the train- 
ing of the family and people chosen to bless all nations; 
the messages through the prophets; the promises of 
the Messiah; in its completion and fulfilment in the 
New Testament, by which the dimness and misun- 
derstandings of the past are done away in the light 



Message of the Old Testament 17 

of the glory of God revealed in the face of Jesus 
Christ, God himself is seen fighting for man, to re- 
deem him from himself into sonship. 
Unfolding of It will be convenient to consider 

Plan in Old first the great Plan of God for the 

Testament. salvation of the world as it unfolds 

throughout the Old Testament under the four divi- 
sions into which the Hebrews divided their sacred 
writings — the Law, the History, the Prophets, the 
Writings — and then to take up the missionary teach- 
ings of the New Testament. 

(1) Missionary The Law, that is the Pentateuch, the 
Message in the Five Books of Moses, was the Bible 
^^^* of Judaism. To it all other parts of 

the Scriptures were supplementary or subordinate. 
It was the Law to whose expounding the Rabbis 
gave their study, day and night. It was this venerable 
code out of which they formed a yoke intolerable to 
be borne because of its subtleties, its puerilities, its 
multitudinous legislations on the minutiae of human 
conduct. Yet it was the Law, out of whose inferences 
Scribes and Pharisees had created an instrument of 
oppressive formalism and into which they had read 
their own bitter intolerance and nationalism, that 
the author of the Hebrews recognized as the shadow 
of better things to come, "a living book, rich in 
vital growth and in symbolic anticipations, a long, 
fibrous root out of which came the new law of the 
Mount and a greater prophet like unto Moses." 
The Pentateuch's The Pentateuch plants itself square- 
revelation of God ly on Theism, and that in itself is 
and his Plan. ^ fundamental missionary message. 

The main conception, out of which sprang Christiani- 



i8 The Bible and Missions 

ty's most precious and distinctive thought of God, 
is planted in Genesis, and overshadows the Penta- 
teuch. ''God," "I Am," "Jehovah," the righteous 
Ruler and Creator, is seen to have a purpose for his 
world of men. 

(a) God, the great A great deal of shallow criticism has 
Person. been passed upon the old Bible for 

what has been called its "anthropomorphism" — 
its God in the likeness of men. But through whatever 
naivete and childlikeness of statement the idea had 
to find its way, it is becoming increasingly evident 
that the theistic conception of the universe is today 
Christianity's final challenge to blank materialism. 
Since personality is our own final perception of 
reality, we must begin to interpret the Ultimate 
Reality in terms of the highest power within the circle 
of our own experience. Step by step the revelation 
of an orderly and rational universe has kept pace 
with man's experience of God, until today multi- 
tudes of every race find the meaning to existence in 
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who of 
old time became the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and 
of Jacob. 

Personaiism Professor Borden P. Bowne, in the 
translated into ripest work of his mature thought, 
Japanese. Persona/tsm, has magnificently ex- 

pounded the philosophy to which the theistic con- 
ception of the universe, implicit in the ancient book 
of the Law, inevitably leads — "A world of persons 
with a Supreme Person at the head." His book has 
been felt to be of such value to the thought of Japan 
that it has been translated by a committee made 
up of American and Japanese scholars and pub- 



Message of the Old Testament 19 

lished, after being subjected to the criticism of the 
classroom in the Doshisha University for three years. 
The reception of the book has shown that Japan is 
keen for this thorough-going philosophical inter- 
pretation of Christian theism. 

(b) Mankind, of The missionary message of the Law 
one blood. is found also in its story of the origin 
of man;* 'And God said. Let us make man in our own 
image," declared the Old Law. Anthropology, Philol- 
ogy, Archeology, and Biology unite today to rein- 
force that sublime declaration. Every added bit of 
knowledge makes clearer the truth so long derided 
and denied, and so long affirmed by God^s Holy 
Word, that mankind is one. In spite of confusion of 
tongues and deep social cleavages; in spite of differ- 
ences in color and customs that merely point to 
deeper divergencies of thought and ideal, the an- 
cient Scripture stands. PauFs bold declaration, so 
opposed to the belief of the educated Greek or Roman 
of his day, is today .a foundation affirmation of 
science. 

"He caused to spring from one forefather people of every race, 
for them to live on the whole surface of the earth, and marked out 
for them an appointed span of life and the boundaries of their 
homes; that they might seek God, if perhaps they could grope 
for him and find him." 

Acts xvii, 26-27 Weymouth). 

(c) The enlarging The missionary message of the Law 
circles of blessing, is found, too, in its story of the 
choice of a man, a family, a nation, to be Jehovah's 
servant for the world. Back of the choice is always 
the purpose to bless. "And in thy seed shall all the 
nations of the earth be blessed." 



20 The Bible and Missions 

A channel of This purpose of election, to be a 
blessing, not a pool channel of blessing, is repeated to 
of privilege. Jacob and reasserted to each of the 

patriarchs. (Gen. xii, 1-3; xviii, 18; xxii, 18; xxvi, 
4; xxviii, 14.) In Jacob's wonderful blessings to his 
sons, the old man rises to the height of pure pro- 
phetic universalism: 

"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, 
Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet. 
Until Shiloh come (He come whose it is — Syriac); 
And unto him shall the obedience of the peoples be." 

Gen. xlix, 10. 

Israel, trustee for In the picture of Exodus xix, ^-6, 
Man. the new-born nation looks back across 

the Red Sea to its days of bondage and forward to 
the Land of Promise. At this solemn moment Moses 
received from the hand of God the nation's commis- 
sion, as Jehovah spoke to him from the burning 
mountain. 

"Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the 
children of Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, 
and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto 
myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and 
keep my covenant, then ye shall be mine own possession from 
among all peoples: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto 
me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." 

Says Carver: 

"First let Israel get her bearings. First let the people learn 
the reason for their separate existence. Let them hear the mean- 
ing of their past preservation and their future career. It was God 
who had acted on them and on the Egyptians. He had brought 
the children of Israel, not to Canaan, not to glory, but *to him- 
self.' Now their future as peculiarly his own people will depend 
upon their obeying genuinely his voice and keeping his cove- 



Message of the Old Testament 21 

nant — covenant inherited through Abraham and to be made anew 
with the nation. Such was his character and such his plan with 
Israel that only thus could he afford to make them his special 
own, above all peoples, as they reflected his glory among men. 
They must not forget that all the earth is his and all its peoples. 
If he takes this one tribe to his heart for the time it is not to 
forget the rest, but to do good to all. His aim is that Israel shall 
serve him as a kingdom of priests a nation set apart to pro- 
phetic service. But when the priest and the prophet are a na- 
tion, the people for whom they minister and to whom they proph- 
esy are the other nations. Abraham's call lies at the basis of 
Israel's election in the plan of God." 

Israel transmutes The Central Sin of Israel was its fail- 
election into ure to discern the meaning of God's 
privilege. election of his Servant Nation. What 
God meant for man, Israel monopolized. 

"A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people, 
Israel," 

was the vision of Simeon's enlightened heart. 

"I will give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest 
be my salvation to the end of the earth," 

sang Isaiah. But the mind of the nation stuck on 
privilege, and its eyes were jealously bent earth- 
ward or haughtily averted from other nations. The 
election to service was transmuted into a charter of 
privilege. Pride in their distinctive calling became 
the ground of the narrowest exclusiveness. The na- 
tion chosen to be the servant of Jehovah turned 
Pharisee, thanking God that it was not as other 
nations, and perished behind the hedge of a law 
interpreted to exclude all Gentiles from the promises 
of Jehovah. The nation turned from the worldwide 
vision of the prophets to the disputations of warring 
sects, and, though custodians of the ideal of a King- 



22 The Bible and Missions 

dom of God on earth, failed to recognize the King 
when he came. 

The tragedy of It is one of the tragedies of history, 
Israel's failure. this failure of the Jewish nation to 
perform the service for which it had been chosen and 
set apart by God. A mystery, too, when all the time 
the Jew possessed the antidote to his fatal narrowness 
of vision in his own Scriptures. It was the vision of 
this tragedy over which Jesus wept as he looked 
upon the Holy City from the brow of the Mount of 
Olives. 

Other lights that Let US not be too hard upon the Jews. 
failed. Theirs is not the only instance of a 

nation richly dowered for service that failed God. 
The Jew, set apart to witness to the one true living 
God to all the earth, failed, and his candlestick was 
removed out of its place. The Greek, more richly 
gifted than any other race to spread the light of art 
and culture among the nations, looked with haughty 
scorn upon all outside 'barbarians,' dimmed the light 
of his radiant soul by unworthy pleasures, and his 
candlestick, too, was removed. The Roman, magnif- 
icently equipped to organize the world in one great 
system of law and justice, fell to worshipping brute 
force and cruelty, and his light also failed. 
Will the Christian Will the Christian Church prove an- 
Churchfail? other tragic instance of a thwarted 

purpose of God ^ Walking not by the flickering torch 
of the Old Testament, but in the full blaze of light 
that streams from the Cross of Christ, inheriting 
his promises, his commands, his love for the whole 
wide world, the Church has failed, up to the present 
moment, to interpret her own worldwide mission. 



Message of the Old Testament 23 

She has spent her strength on definitions while the 
world lay in agony, has prated of "lesser folk without 
the law," while millions were denied their birthright 
in the gospel, has wrapped race prejudice about her 
like a garment, and from her coffers of abundance 
flung a few coins now and then, with which to finance 
the army of the Prince of Peace for the winning of the 
world. She has withheld her sons and daughters, 
denied her oath of allegiance, and all the while the 
Bible she professes to believe has been summoning her 
to abjure self and take up her cross of sacrifice and 
follow Jesus for the salvation of the world. 
The gospel will The gospel will not fail. The Lord 
not fail. Jesus shall see of the travail of his 

soul and be satisfied. The kingdoms of this world 
shall become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his 
Christ. But the Church may Jail^ may be set aside 
for another instrument. Today is the day of salva- 
tion for c :r Protestant churches. If we harden our 
hearts and close our eyes and refuse the plain call 
of God, other generations may see in us another 
Israel whose narrowness of vision was condemned 
by the very Scripture in which is our boast, 
(d) In the pro- The missionary message of the Law 
pheticnote. is found in its prophetic note. Run- 

ning through the book of Genesis like the first faint 
streaks of dawn are premonitions of universalism. 
The first promise of redemption is made to the 
mother of all living (Gen. iii, 15) in the person of that 
mysterious seed who shall bruise the serpent's head. 
In Melchizadek, King of Salem, priest of the Most 
High God, there rises a majestic figure out of the 
shadowy unknown peoples. To him Abraham, the 



24 The Bible and Missions 

father of the chosen people, pays tithes as an inferior 
to a superior, recognizing in him a messenger of the 
Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth. 
The author of the letter to the Hebrews uses this 
incident at length to bring to the consciousness of 
Hebrew converts that wider priesthood which took 
its origin, not from the ritual of human legislation, 
but was made in the power of that Endless Life 
which enlightens every man born into the world, Jew 
or Gentile (Heb. vii, 1-16). 

(e) The Angel of The mysterious Angel of the Lord, 
the Presence. recognized with such awe and trem- 
bling as the dread presence of Divinity, comes and 
goes through the story, the first faint revelation of 
Immanuel, God with us, the glory and the heart of 
the Christian message. 

Gen. xvi, 7; Gen. xxii, 11-15; Gen. xxxii, 24-30; Gen. xxxv, 
9-13; Exod. iii, 2-6; Exod. xiv, 19; Exod. xxiii, 20-23; Num. 
xxii, 31; Josh. V, 13-15. 

II. Missionary The missionary meaning of the so- 
messageofthe called 'Historical Books' that follow 
Historical Books, ^^e Pentateuch is not so clear as 
that of the Law. If the theories of the modern 
school of interpreters are correct, these are for the 
most part earlier writings in which the missionary 
understanding of Israel's mission is naturally less 
clear. Under any interpretation the life story of the 
Hebrew people is profitable for instruction in right- 
eousness. The long discipline of the people culminat- 
ing in the captivity sees Israel at last weaned from 
his idols and devoted in his soul to the worship of 
the one true God. It is interesting to note that 
the two other religions that are uncompromisingly 



Message of the Old Testament 25 

monotheistic, Islam and Christianity, spring from 
Judaism. In these long centuries of disaster and 
apostasy the hope of a coming King beams con- 
stantly clearer. 

The Foreigner in One of the outstanding instances of 
Solomon's prayer a wider than national meaning in 
of dedication. ^-^^ gtory is found in I Kings v, where 
Hiram, King of Tyre, congratulates Solomon on 
his purpose to build a temple for God, furnishes him 
with great cedars of Lebanon, and the two kings 
cement one of the earliest ^'leagues of nations." In 
Solomon's prayer of dedication that follows, we catch 
solemn overtones of the universal gospel. 

"Moreover concerning the foreigner, that is not of thy peo- 
ple Israel, when he shall come out ot a tar country ror tny 
name's sake (for they shall hear of thy great name, and of thy 
mighty hand, and of thine outstretched arm); when he shall 
come and pray toward this house; hear thou in heaven thy 
dwelling-place, and do according to all that the foreigner calleth 
to thee for; that all the peoples of the earth may know thy 
name, to fear thee, as doth thy people Israel, and that they may 
know that this.house which I have built is called by thyname." 

I Kings viii, 41-43. 

God's gracious Our Lord was quick to call the atten- 
caiiing outside tion of the orthodox Jews of his 
the Law. ^^y ^q God's gracious care for his 

children outside of the pale ol tne cnosen people. 
"I tell you truly," he said, "that in Israel there were 
many widows during the days of Elijah, when the 
sky was closed for three years and six months, when 
a great famine came over all the land; yet Elijah 
was not sent to any of these, but only to a widow 
woman at Zarephath in Sidon; and in Israel there 
were many lepers in the time of the prophet Elisha, 



26 The Bible and Missions 

yet none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman 
the Syrian." Luke iv, 25-27. 

Resented by the So Violent are human prejudices, so 
orthodox. slow of heart are men to believe and 

rejoice in the wide plans of God, who is no respecter 
of persons, that the effect of this gracious unfolding 
of the wider applications of their own Scriptures was 
that "all in the synagogue were filled with rage and 
rose up and put him out of the town and brought him 
to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, 
in order to hurl him down." 

The captive Still another exquisite missionary 

Syrian maid. pendant is the story of the captive 

maid in the house of Naaman the leper, whose heart 
goes out quite naturally and simply in the desire to 
share God's grace with those who know it not, hum- 
ble protagonist of those thousands who today in far 
distant lands are telling of the great fountain which 
God has opened for the cleansing of human sin. 
(II Kings V, 2-3.) 

III. Missionary The poets are ever the 'makers,' the 
message in the *see-ers' who lead the advance of 
Poetical Books. human thought, and so it is not 
strange that some of the clearest missionary messages 
of the Old Testament should be found in the Psalms, 
and the poetic visions of Isaiah. Man's gift of imag- 
ination enables him to fuse the present and the 
future, the actual and the ideal, into one glowing 
vision, transcending experience. Tennyson could 
visualize the 'Federation of the world, the Parlia- 
ment of man,' when as yet there was none of them. 
Kipling could describe the transatlantic voyage of 
a huge air ship. The Night Mail,' in what seemed 



Message of the Old Testament 27 

to most people a mere fanciful tale. So David and the 
poets, out of the struggling earthly kingdoms, under 
the tutelage of God's Spirit, were able from afar off 
to rejoice in Messiah's reign and in the universal 
worship of Jehovah. 

The poet, the Says Horton: "The story-teller, the 
real seer. poet, and the thinker give expression 

to the spontaneous feelings and aspirations of a 
people. . . . There can be no question that to find 
the real trend of a people you must examine the 
imaginative side of its life. If, for example, we wished 
to sum up the nineteenth century in England, we 
should feel that no parliamentary history and no 
legislative enactments would take us so surely to 
the heart of the question as the writings of Words- 
worth and Carlyle, of Browning and Ruskin." So 
we shall find that while priest and Levite were poring 
over the minutiae of the Law, David with his harp, 
as he watched his flock on the hillside, was listening 
to the voice of the God who spoke through both Law 
and Prophet to the heart of mankind. 
Ruth and Job While the lawgivers were becoming 
in the missionary constantly narrower and more bit- 
tjurpose. terly nationalistic in their outlook, 

the men of imagination were writing the exquisite 
story of Ruth, the Moabitess, a woman outside the 
covenant, who chose God to be her God and his 
people, her people, and became an ancestress of 
Israel's Messiah King. Another great thinker was 
going to the Land of Uz to find an example of a true 
servant of Jehovah in the person of Job. 

The Psalms are But it is in the Psalms that the rich- 
mankind's est missionary meaning is found, 
hymnal. jf gygj. ^n^^ were inspired by God's 



28 The Bible and Missions 

Spirit to write not for their own, but for all time, not 
for a nation, but for man, it is surely the writers of 
the Psalms. These old hymn books of the Jews, 
written for the worship of the temple, have so little 
of ritual or particularity about them that quite sim- 
ply and inevitably they express the universal heart of 
man. "Whoever were the human authors of the 
Psalms, the real author was the Spirit of God. No 
human poet or series of poets could have produced 
a collection capable of accomplishing such results 
as this has accomplished." 

"These inspired poets give the breadth and inner meaning of 
the national institutions, that universal and eternal element 
which clothed itself for a time in the forms and methods of the 
Tabernacle and the Temple, but broke away from the old system 
when its day was over, to be clothed upon with the tabernacle 
from heaven, with that universal and holy religion which was 
suitable to the whole world. 

"It would have been inconceivable beforehand how hymns 
could have been written in Judaism, to be sung in Christendom; 
how the songs of the Temple, which was to be destroyed, could 
be suitable to the Temple not made with hands; how a communi- 
ty which was thinking only of its exclusive privileges and of its 
superiority to the other nations of the world, could uncon- 
sciously forecast a holy King, to whom all the nations of the 
heathen should be given, and compose the grateful praises in 
which a ransomed humanity would join. But that inconceivable 
possibility is precisely the miracle which is realized in the Psalms, 
and the missionary significance of it must be plain as soon as it 
is pointed out." {Horton) 

Particular mes- Turning to a brief consideration of a 
sages of the few of the many missionary mes- 

Psaims. sages of the Psalms, we find a recogni- 

tion that Jehovah is the God of the whole world ^ King of 
men as well as of the material universe. Psa. ii; 



Message of the Old Testament 29 

xviii, 49; xix; xxii, 27-28; xxiv; xxxiii; xlvi; xlvii; 
Ixv; Ixvi; Ixvii; xc\^i; xcviii; c; cxvii; cxlv. 

A revelation of God to the human heart. Such 
psalms as the twenty- third, the twenty-seventh with 
its rapturous "The Lord is my hght and my salva- 
tion; whom shall I fear?", the penitent joy of the 
thirty-fourth, the proud trust of the thirty-seventh, 
the panting of the soul for the living God in the 
forty-second, the heart-broken cry to a God who for- 
gives in the fifty-first, the overflowing gratitude of 
the one hundred and third, the help from the God 
of the hills in the one hundred and twenty-first, the 
overwhelming sense of God's presence in the one 
hundred and thirty-ninth, and the hallelujah chorus 
of the one hundred and fiftieth, are predestined to 
universality. They take the wings of the wind and 
fly to the uttermost parts of the earth; wherever a 
human heart is found they create their own agencies 
of transmission. The pure water of life from out the 
hills of God must find its way to the ocean of man's 
need. 

The Vision of a Messianic Kingdom. There is in 
the Psalms a constant expectation and anticipation 
of a King who shall reign in righteousness over 
an Everlasting Kingdom. Doubtless many of these 
Psalms found their occasion in celebration of coro- 
nation or victory in the history of the monarchy. 
But any or all of the triumphs of David or Solomon, 
Josiah, or Hezekiah are far too small to fill the 
splendid canvas upon which the psalmist paints 
his glorious vision. Let any unprejudiced person 
carefully read Psalms ii, xxii, 1, Ixvii, Ixxii, Ixxx, xcviii, 
ex, and the conviction will be overwhelming that it 



30 The Bible and Missions 

is as prophet, rather than chronicler, that the poet is 
writing. 

Says Horton : 

"The King of whom they sing is more God than man, and the 
dominion which is promised to him is humanity ratiher than 
Israel. Of course the national colouring is there, and the flights 
of fancy are sometimes brought down rather suddenly to con- 
crete realities, before the poet's eye; but, as we put together the 
catena of those Psalms touching the King and the Kingdom, we 
know that we are dealing with a great missionary thought, which 
admits of no limitation short of humanity as a whole." 

Jesus nourished Moreover, these very Psalms were 
his soul on the part of those Scriptures on which was 
Psalms. nourished the soul of the Son of Man. 

That he did not fail to find in them this nobler note 
of prophecy is very evident on turning to the Gos- 
pels. Matthew saw in Jesus' use of parables on that 
day by the seaside an echo of Psa. Ixxviii, 2. 
Our Lord himself applies to himself the words of 
Psa. cxviii, 22, 23, concerning the stone rejected 
by the builders (Matt, xxi, 42), and to Judas the 
words of Psa. xli, 9, about the betrayal of a familiar 
friend. As the disciples watched the Figure on the 
Cross during the dark hours of the crucifixion, it was 
of the words of the twenty-second Psalm that they 
thought as they saw the soldiers gambling for the 
garments of the Son of Man; and of the sixty- 
ninth Psalm as the sponge dipped in vinegar was 
thrust between his dying lips. 

In his own perfect familiarity with the Jewish 
Scriptures, our Lord on the Cross gave expression 
to his anguish and his trust in the words of Psalm 
xxii, I (Matt, xxvii, 46) and Psalm xxxi, 5 (Luke 
xxiii, 46). 



Message of the Old Testament 31 

The Psalms pre- There are, moreover, several details 
figured his in these Messianic psalms which were 

experience. exactly reproduced in the life of our 

Lord, although they are not so quoted in the New 
Testament. Such, for example, are the words of 
attestation at his baptism and transfiguration 
(Psa. ii, 7); his rejection by his brethren (Psa. 
Ixix, 8); his condemnation by false witnesses (Psa. 
XXXV, 11); the piercing of his hands and feet (Psa. 
xxii, 16), and the mocking of the crowd at his cru- 
cifixion (Psa. xxii, 7, 8). 

Peter's and Paul's Peter and Paul turned to the Mes- 
useoftheMes- sianic psalms for illustrations as they 
sianic Psalms. preached the risen Saviour, Psa. xvi, 
8-10 (applied Acts ii, 25-31; Acts xiii, 35-37); 
Psa. ex, I (applied Acts ii, 32-36); Psa. Ixix, 9 (ap- 
plied Rom. XV, 3) ; Psa. Ixviii, 1 8 (applied Acts ii, 
2^); Psa. ii, 7 (applied Acts xiii, ^2)'^ Psa. viii, 
4-6 (applied I Cor. xv, 27); Psa„ xlv, 6-7 (applied 
Heb. i, 8, 9); Psa. xxii, 22 (applied Heb. ii, 12). 
IV. The Missionary The most glorious missionary mes- 
message of the gages of the Old Testament, however. 
Prophets. ^j.^ ^.q ]^q found neither in Law, His- 

tory, nor Poetry, but in the writing of the prophets, 
when "holy men of old spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Spirit." 

The prophets It must not be forgotten that the 
seem our contem- structure of the Old Testament is 
poraries. j^q^- linear, but rather on four parallel 

lines covering somewhat the same periods of time 
with differing emphases. Thus, the prophets accom- 
pany the poets, and they the historians, over a great 
part of Israel's pilgrimage. But while Chronicles 



32 The Bible and Missions 

narrates the story from the ecclesiastical point of 
view, the prophets are reacting to the same Provi- 
dences in the light of spiritual and universal applica- 
tions of the moral law. This is what makes the 
prophets so contemporary. The quaint and archaic 
in the fashion of thought of those who wrote the 
Chronicles of the Kings is wanting in the burning 
messages of the prophets. To us they speak with 
present authority; of our sins and problems they 
write; it is our faith that they reassure in the coming 
of the rule of God among men. 
Missionary con- There are certain great conceptions 
captions common more or less common to the prophets : 
to the prophets, (a) They regard Israel as God's 
chosen instrument for worldwide ends, (b) They 
perceive in varying degrees the unity of human 
history, (c) They recognize God's disciplinary prov- 
idences over his people, (d) They know that the 
chosen nation's privileges are not its property, but 
held in trust for mankind, (e) Their eyes are fixed 
not on the past, to see a vanished golden age, but 
on the future, with unquenchable hope. In this 
brief outline we can only hint at the missionary ma- 
terial of the prophets, in the hope that the sugges- 
tions given may lead out to more adequate study 
of the whole mind and heart enlarging subject. 
Four prophets of There are four prophets belonging 
the eighth cen- to the eighth Century before Christ, 
tury, B. c. . — ^Amos and Hosea of the Northern 

Kingdom of Israel, and Micah and Isaiah of the 
Southern Kingdom ot Judah. In Amos and Hosea, 
the most ancient, explicit missionary lessons are 
naturally fewest; yet these two writers are out- 




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Message of the Old Testament 23 

standing figures in the development of human 
thought; their words contribute no slender stream 
to that river of the Water of Life that now runs 
sweetly through all the earth. 

The gospel in Amos, a herdsman and gatherer of 
Amos. wild figs, appears suddenly before 

the luxurious and oppressive court of Jeroboam with 
a strong message from Jehovah. In words of rough- 
hewn and passionate sincerity he announces God's 
just judgment upon the surrounding nations, Da- 
mascus, Tyre, Edom, and Ammon, picturing the 
fate of Tyre, then in her glory. He lays bare Israel's 
oppression of the poor, the luxury and parasitism 
of her women, and prophesies famine and desolation. 
With wonderful tenderness he laments his country's 
fate and beseeches her in God's name to seek good 
and not evil, that she may live; to let justice run down 
as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. 
With a social passion that we are wont to think be- 
longs to our own day, he foretells the sure destruc- 
tion and captivity to come, when God will sift Israel 
among all nations as corn is sifted in a sieve. His 
book closes with a majestic prophecy of restoration. 
(Amos ix, 11-15.) The gospel's familiar lines are 
in the prophecy of Amos, faint, but clear, (i) Democ- 
racy in God's choice of an instrument, (2) Considera- 
tion for the poor at a time when pity was unknown, 
(3) God's righteous government reaching out to the 
whole world, (4) A spiritual as opposed to a ritual 
religious emphasis. 

Hosea's gospel Hosea is the earliest great teacher of 
of the love of the love of God. Through the teach- 
^°^* in^s of his own sufferings because of 



34 The Bible and Missions 

an unfaithful wife, Hosea discerns the suffering love 
of God reaching out after his rebellious people. A 
new voice was heard in the world, one single thrilling 
note, when Hosea dared to figure the Eternal as 
drawing his people with the cords of a man, with the 
bands of love, and to sound the note of God's heart- 
break over his rebellious people. "How shall I give 
thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? 
O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is 
thine help. I will ransom thee from the power of the 
grave. O death, I will be thy plague." A note new in 
the world, but to grow and increase until it culminat- 
ed in the gospel of a God who so loved the world 
that he gave his Son to save it. 

Micah foretells After Samaria fell in her unrepented 
the coming King- evil doing, Micah and Isaiah took up 
^°^' the work of warning the Southern 

Kingdom of the fate that was sure to follow upon 
its godlessness and immorality. The conditions of 
industrial oppression and social vice which Micah 
reveals among the princes of Judah do not differ 
materially from those which Amos denounced in 
Israel or those which are to be found in our own day. 
Against them the prophet pronounced the sure doom 
which ever dogs the steps of the nations that forget 
God. In his fourth chapter is found the earliest 
clear forecast of that universal gospel at the heart 
of God's plan for his ancient people. 

"But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain 
of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the 
mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people 
shall flow unto it. 

"And many nations shall come, and say, Come and let us go 



Message of the Old Testament 35 

up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of 
Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his 
paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord 
from Jerusalem. 

"And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong 
nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, 
and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up a 
sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. 

"But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his 
fig tree; and none shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the 
Lord of hosts hath spoken it. 

"For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, 
and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and 
ever." Micah iv, 1-5. 

Micah's inter- In Micah, too, occurs the remark- 
pretationoftrue able prophecy in regard to Bethle- 
religion. j^^j^ (Micah V, 2) and the most 

glorious setting forth of spiritual as opposed to for- 
mal religion; an interpretation of religion absolutely 
fatal to any partial, racial, or dispensational claims, 
and embracing all mankind under its wide sky. 

"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself 
before the high God ? Shall I come before him with burnt offer- 
ings, with calves of a year old? 

"Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten 
thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my trans- 
gression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul ? 

"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the 
Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to 
walk humbly with thy God?" Micah vi, 6-8. 

The circumstances Isaiah has been called the fifth evan- 
of Isaiah's gelist, because in his prophecies the 

ministry. gospel note sounds clearest and most 

often. What were but scattered gleams and intima- 
tions in Hosea and Amos become settled convictions 
with Isaiah. In his writings for the first time we 



2^ The Bible and Missions 

recognize a world- vision. Isaiah lived and prophesied 
through four invasions of Judea, by the insolent and 
brutal power of Assyria. He lived when all the little 
nations of Western Asia alternately trembled and 
intrigued between the great world powers of that 
day; Assyria to the North, Egypt to the South. 
Judah was Assyria's Belgium, lying between her 
ambitions for world domination and her rival, Egypt. 
Two convictions Isaiah's missionary meaning rests 
underlying upon two convictions; God*s right- 

Isaiah's gospel. eousness and God's providential gov- 
ernment not alone of his chosen people, but of the 
world. In his superb confidence in the might of God's 
righteousness, he is able to reassure the hearts of his 
generation, paralyzed by the fear of a conscienceless 
tyranny. The first expression of the Christian 
philosophy of history was given in Isaiah's claim for 
Jehovah of an authority over all the nations, to use 
them as instruments to work out his providence. 
One Lord over In the "dooms" pronounced upon all 
all nations. the nations surrounding his own, 

Isaiah breaks in upon the exclusiveness of his people 
with a new world-note. "As you read his prophecies 
upon foreign nations," says George Adam Smith, 
"you perceive that before the eyes of this man 
humanity, broken and scattered in his day as it was, 
rose up, one great whole, every part of which was sub- 
ject to the same laws of righteousness and deserved 
from the prophet of God the same love and pity." 
Isaiah takes From his watch tower of prophecy 

possession of the Isaiah looked out upon a world that 
world in God's seems Strangely small to our modern 
^^^^' eyes; but a world that filled the largest 



Message of the Old Testament 37 

horizon of those times, a world stretching from the 
ultimate West of the Isles of the ^.gean to the ulti- 
mate East beyond the Great River Euphrates. Of 
this world he took possession in the name of God; 
looking forward to the time when "the particular 
religious opportunities of the Jew should be the 
inheritance of humanity." In closing one of the 
noblest missionary sermons of the Old Testament, 
he writes: **In that day shall Israel be the third with 
Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the 
earth; for that Jehovah of hosts hath blessed them, 
saying. Blessed be Egypt my people and Assyria the 
work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.'* 
(Isa. xix, 24-25.) 

Isaiah's challenge The same questions as those Isaiah 
for Today. faced are still at stake. Men are still 

in danger of believing in the right of might, rather 
than the might of right. Deep cleavages still divide 
the nations, making it difficult to believe in one 
Father God with a purpose that embraces all man- 
kind. Still are men fain to settle down in selfish 
ease when no foe menaces their own frontier, forget- 
ful of those others without the gate for whom 
Christ died. For the Christian Church of today, as 
for God's ancient Jewish people, Isaiah has a mes- 
sage. We, too, must in the name of God claim the 
world for our parish. A modern writer has phrased 
this missionary challenge in unforgetable terms. 
If Missions fail, "I am asked, *Do you believe in 
Christ a failure. foreign missions?' I answer, 'Do you 
believe in the gospel of Christ?' For be assured of 
this, if foreign missions, when considered in the 
large, are a failure, the gospel is a failure. If Jesus 



38 The Bible and Missions 

Christ has no message for the man in Shanghai that 
is worth giving my life, if need be, to get it to him, 
he has no message for the man in London that I 
need bother about. He is either the Saviour of the 
whole world or he is no man's Saviour." 

Other instances of Isaiah's vision of the world- 
meaning of his nation's faith may be found in Chapters 
ii; ix, 2-8; xi; xxxiii. 

The vision of the The latter chapters of the book, the 
Suffering Servant, fortieth to the sixty-sixth inclusive, 
have been called "one glowing rhapsody of Zion 
redeemed." Internal evidence of this portion of the 
prophecy has led many reverent students of the Bible 
to assign the prophecies to a later date and to an- 
other author. Whether this or the traditional view 
is taken does not alter the glorious missionary mes- 
sage of these marvelous prophecies. The ideas under- 
lying the earlier chapters are here expressed with a 
fulness and a glory of prophetic hope that put them 
on a plane nearer to the New Testament than any 
other portion of the Old Testament. Not only are 
the righteousness of God and his nearness to his 
people discerned, not only is Jehovah proclaimed as 
the God of the whole earth, but the vision of the 
SuflFering Servant of Jehovah is so drawn that the 
heart of the world has recognized in it the portrait 
of the One who was, indeed, wounded for the trans- 
gressions of the whole world. 

See Isa. xlii, 1-4; Hi, 7, 10, 15; Ix, 1-9; ixi, 1-3, ii; Ixv, i; Ixvi, 
10, 12, 13, 16, 18-23. 

The call of the The prophet Jeremiah delivered his 
Prophet Jeremiah, niessage during the terrible days of 



Message of the Old Testament 39 

the dissolution and exile of his nation. His was the 
hard task of doing a patriot's duty in such a way that 
to the men of his day he seemed false to his country. 
In Jeremiah's call we have a noble prototype of the 
call of all true missionaries. Summoned out of his 
conscious weakness, girded with the power of the 
God who commissioned him, he is sent to "nations 
and kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to de- 
stroy and to throw down, to build and to plant." 
(Jer. i, 10.) Thus ever does the task of destroying 
the false precede and accompany the constructive 
work of laying the foundations of the unseen Empire 
of Jesus Christ. 

Jeremiah, a type In his personality Jeremiah stands 
of the Suffering out as the greatest of the prophets, 
Servant. ^j^g ^^^ ^j^q typified in his suffering 

on behalf of his sinning people that Other who came 
as God's Missionary to his own, but whose own 
received him not, who was rejected and made of no 
reputation among his brethren, and who wept over 
Jerusalem, still rejecting the love of God, who sought 
her. Out of the agony of his witnessing Jerem.iah 
comes to hope in the coming King in his Kingdom. 

See Jer. xxiii, 1-8; xxxi, 10-12, 31-34. 

Ezekiers gospel Ezekiel is the great prophet of the 
for the individual. Captivity, writing out of the land 
whither the exiled people had been taken. In Ezekiel 
we have the emergence of the gospel for the indi- 
vidual. The elder prophets, and even Isaiah and 
Jeremiah, fixed their thought for the most part on 
God's purpose for the nation and, through the na- 
tion, for the world. Ezekiel writes his message of 



4© The Bible and Missions 

hope and restoration to the nation, but he writes 
also for the individual man. In one of the weigh- 
tiest utterances in the history of religions, Ezekiel 
makes use of an ancient proverb, — "The fathers have 
eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set 
on edge," — to declare the Eternal's care for every 
human soul. 

BEHOLD, ALL SOULS ARE MINE; AS THE SOULOFTHE 
FATHER, SO ALSO THE SOUL OF THE SON IS MINE: THE 
SOUL THAT SINNETH, IT SHALL DIE. 

On this as his text he proceeds to build up his great 
discussion on heredity and environment, leading up 
to a conviction that lies at the very heart of the Good 
News which Jesus came to give to all mankind. 

See Ezek. xviii, 31-32; xi, 19, 20; xxxvi, 25-27. 
Not lost in the This gospel of redemption for the 
crowd, the gospel's individual is one of the most precious 
glorious promise, treasures of Christianity. The right- 
eous individual is not lost sight of in a worthless 
family. The wicked has held out to him the promise 
of that new heart which is the gift of God. Such 
good news of salvation, like all good news, compels 
its own telling. It can no more be monopolized 
than sunshine or the stars. 

In Ezekiel's parable of the hireling shepherd 
(Chapter xxxiv), is to be found a missionary mes- 
sage that rebukes our selfish ease as it did that of 
the professedly religious in the long ago. Can it 
be that America, called to be a shepherd nation, 
will close her eyes to Christ's flock, scattered shep- 
herdless upon all the face of the earth, with none 
to search or seek after them ? 

See Ezek. xxxiv, 9-1 1. 




BUDDHIST WOMEN FILLING RED CROSS BAGS 



Message of the Old Testament 41 

These words were echoed long after by the Lord 
Jesus when he said, "Other sheep I have which are 
not of this fold; them also I must bring, and there 
shall be one flock and one shepherd." 
The Healing The vision of the healing waters that 

Waters. flowed Out of the sanctuary (Ezek. 

xlvii, I -1 3), is a symbol of the progress of the 
gospel throughout all lands. Issuing as a slender 
stream from out the house of God, it deepens and 
widens until it becomes water to swim in, a river that 
can not be crossed over; and, into whatever desert 
the river flows, there come trees of fadeless leaf and 
fruit which shall be for food and medicine, and 
everything shall live whither the river cometh. 
speaking Peace to In Haggai and Zechariah we have 
the Heathen. messages regarding the rebuilding of 
the temple and the city from which truth shall go 
forth over the wide world. Zechariah has become 
forever precious to the Christian conscience in his 
foreshadowing of the betrayal and crucifixion of 
our Lord. (Zech. xi, 12, 13; xii, 10.) He joins in 
the great chorus of the prophets to invite all nations 
to share with the chosen people in the grace of God 
(Zech. ii, 11; Zech. viii, 7-8) and most gloriously, 
Zech. ix, 9-10: 

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of 
Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and 
having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt 
the foal of an ass. 

"And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse 
from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall 
speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from 
sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the 
earth." 



42 The Bible and Missions 

Habakkuk's Habakkuk's message seems peculiar- 

Message, ly meant for our day. Baffled by the 

wrong and insolent tyranny which he beholds every- 
where, the sensitive soul of the prophet turns to his 
God with a question: "How long will Jehovah per- 
mit wrong and violence to triumph, so that the Law 
is paralyzed and justice never gets done? Shall the 
oppressor forever draw his sword and ceaselessly 
massacre the nations.^" And Jehovah answers: the 
prophet sets his answer down quite plainly, so that 
he that runs may read: 

*It is God himself who is about to raise up the Chaldeans, that 
bitter and hasty nation, swifter than leopard and more fierce 
than evening wolves, and use them for his own purposes.* 

The Everlasting The poet's faith climbs trembling to 
Yea. his watch tower, and again interrogates 

the Holy One of Israel: "Hast thou ordained them 
for judgment? and O, Mighty God, hast thou estab- 
lished them for corrections? O why dost thou, who 
art of purer eyes than to behold evil, look upon those 
who deal treacherously and keep silence when the 
wicked devour men more righteous than they, 
catching them like fish in their cruel net?" Again 
Jehovah answered his agonized prophet upon his 
little watch tower of faith, looking for evidences that 

"behind the dim unknown 

Standeth God within the shadow. 
Keeping watch above his own." 

God's answer is the quiet *Hush, my child,' of the 
Eternal. 

"Though the vision tarry, wait for it." 
"The just shall live by his faith." 



Message of the Old Testament 43 

Just the old, old riddle of the world, so torn and 
sinful, in which somehow the wrath of man is made 
to praise God, and his will gets itself done in spite 
of Assyrian or Chaldean, Attila, scourge of God, or 
the insolent rage of the Hun. 

"Thy Kingdom The prophet, comforted, though not 
Come." answered, raises the bold challenge 

of faith against all insolent evil of whatever age. 
Sure of the downfall and confusion that await 
every wicked work, the prophet sees 

"That the glory of God shall cover the earth as the waters 
cover the sea." See also Hab. ii, 14. 

and in his renewed faith cries, 

"But the Lord is in his holy temple: 
Let all the earth keep silence before him." 

Out of what littleness are we come to what a wide 
expanse, from the days when Israel thought jealously 
of her God in his temple on Mount Moriah to this 
theophany of God who makes wicked nations his 
instruments of justice and correction, and before 
whom the whole earth keeps reverent silence! 
The Messages of Of the "pointing prophets'* in Sar- 
the Covenant. gent's great picture Slalachi stands 
nearest, a messenger who tells the petulant people 
how the Lord will "suddenly come to his temple, 
even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight 
in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. 
But who may abide the day of his coming? and who 
shall stand when he appeareth ? for he is like a refiner's 
fire, and like fullers' soap: and he shall sit as a refiner 
and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of 
Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they 



44 The Bible and Missions 

may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." 
Mai. iii, 1-3. 

"But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteous- 
ness arise with healing in his wings:. . . . 

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming 
of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Mai. iv, i, 5, 

"My Name Re- The most Striking missionary teach- 
vered among the ing of Malachi is found in the first 
Nations." chapter, in which the prophet con- 

trasts the grudging and polluted offerings of the 
priests with the worship offered to God outside the 
borders of Israel. The insertion in the authorized 
version of the words "shall be" in the eleventh verse, 
thus making of the statement a prophecy, has ob- 
scured the meaning of the prophet. George Adam 
Smith's faithful translation makes it beautifully 
plain: 

"A son honours a father, and a servant his lord. But if I 
am Father, where is My honour? and if I am Lord, where is 
reverence for Me? saith Jehovah of hosts to you, O priests, who 
despise My Name. Ye say, 'How then have we despised Thy 
Name?* Ye are bringing polluted food to Mine Altar. Ye say, 
'How have we polluted Thee?* By saying, 'The Table of Jehovah 
may be despised'; and when ye bring a blind beast to sacrifice, 
'No harm,' or when ye bring a lame or sick one, 'No harm.* 
Pray, take it to thy Satrap; will he be pleased with thee, or accept 
thy person? saith Jehovah of Hosts. But now, propitiate God, 
that He may be gracious to us. When things like this come from 
your hands, can He accept your persons? saith Jehovah of Hosts. 
Who is there among you to close the doors of the Temple alto- 
gether, that ye kindle not Mine Altar in vain? I have no pleasure 
in you, saith Jehovah of Hosts, and I will not accept an offering 
from your hands. For from the rising of the sun and to its setting 
My Name is glorified among the nations; and in every sacred 
place incense is offered to My Name, and a pure offering; for 



Message of the Old Testament 45 

great is My Name among the nations, saith Jehovah of Hosts. 
But ye are profaning it, in that ye think that the Table of the 
Lord is polluted, and its food contemptible. And ye say, What a 
weariness! and ye sniff at it, saith Jehovah of Hosts. When ye 
bring what has been plundered, and the lame and the diseased, 
yea, when ye so bring an offering, can I accept it with grace 
from your hands.'* saith Jehovah. Cursed be the cheat in whose 
flock is a male beast and he vows it, and slays for the Lord a mis- 
erable beast. For a great King am I, saith Jehovah of Hosts, 
and My Name is reverenced among the nations." 

Was it Reverenced This passage may be understood in 
by Jewish exiles? either of two ways: (ist), that the 
"reverencing of God's name among the heathen from 
the rising of the sun to its setting" may be due to the 
spread of the Jewish Scriptures and religion through- 
out the ancient world. We know that the demand for 
a translation of these Scriptures was so great that 
one called the Septuagint was made into Greek in 
the third century, B.C. We know, too, that this came 
into more general use than the original Hebrew, so 
that our Lord and his apostles, in quoting from the 
Old Testament, used the Septuagint. The wide 
diffusion of the Hebrew faith may be inferred also 
from the multitude of pilgrims who came annually 
to Jerusalem from every land to attend the Passover. 
(Acts ii, i-ii.) 

In Every Nation. ?^ ^^^e Other hand, the passage may 
be the acknowledgment on the part 
of the prophet that the One True God had those who 
served him in spirit and truth, all over the world, 
even as Paul said, "In every nation he that feareth 
God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him." 
**From the first," says George Adam Smith, "they 
(the prophets of Israel) had known their God as a 



46 The Bible and Missions 

God of a grace so infinite that it was impossible that 
it should be exhausted upon themselves. If his 
righteousness, as Amos showed, was over all the 
Syrian states, and his pity and power to convert, as 
Isaiah showed, covered even the cities of Phoenicia, 
the great evangelist of the exile could declare that 
he quenched not the smoking wicks of the dim 
heathen faiths." 

The Prophet When we turn to the book of Daniel 

Daniel. we find ourselves on one of the battle- 

grounds of interpretation. The apocalyptic elements 
of Daniel's vision and those in the prophecy of 
Ezekiel form the background of John's glowing 
Apocalypse with which the New Testament closes. 
The diverse theories regarding the meaning of those 
apocalyptic elements are almost as numerous as the 
commentators. Such speculations are quite apart 
from the purpose of this brief survey, as are other 
disputes in regard to the date of composition. Wheth- 
er the book of Daniel, as we now have it, is of single 
or composite authorship, we know that all of it was 
written before the translation of the Old Testament 
into Greek, during the third century, B.C. Its mis- 
sionary message may be found by both radicals and 
conservatives. 

The Stone that In the second chapter there is an 
became a great account of Daniel's interpretation of 
mountain. ^ dream of Nebuchadnezzar, which 

none of the king's astrologers or sorcerers could in- 
terpret. The king dreamed of a great image with 
head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and 
thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet part iron and 
part clay. Then he dreamed of a stone cut out with- 



Message of the Old Testament 47 

out hands, which broke the great image in pieces hke 
the chaff of the summer threshing floor, but the stone 
became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. 
Our attention is fixed not on what Daniel says 
about the four earthly kingdoms that shall arise in 
succession, but on his prophetic declaration that 
upon the destruction of the fourth kingdom: 

**In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a 
kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall 
not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and con- 
sume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Forasmuch 
as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain with- 
out hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the 
clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to 
the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is 
certain, and the interpretation thereof is sure." Dan. ii, 44-45. 

The great Here we have reiterated the great 

expectation. hope that we have found expressed 

with varying degrees of clearness in all the prophets 
— the hope of a Messianic Kingdom. This indubit- 
able fact is one of the mysteries in human history. 
Why should the Jew have cherished it, unless it were 
given by that Spirit of God who was speaking in 
the hearts of men ? This expectation, phrased in such 
noble imagery, was fulfilled in the days of the break- 
up of Rome's kingdom of iron and clay, when the 
Lord Jesus came preaching in Galilee, "The King- 
dom is at hand." 
^, , . Of the obscurer elements in DanieFs 

Obscure elements 

Vision It IS not necessary to speak. 
Since our Lord himself declared that he did not 
know *the day or the hour,' we can hardly expect to 
learn it by calculations based on Daniel's prophecy. 



48 The Bible and Missions 

What is dark to us now may some day be made 
plain, but one thing is plain, the confident looking 
forward to the reign of the Son of Man in power. 
Through all the obscurities of apocalyptic vision 
certain promises shine out hke stars; by them we may 
guide our course until the night is gone. 
The prophet The prophet Joel has left us one of 

of Pentecost. the noblest visions of the Old Testa- 

ment in his prophecy of the pouring out of the Spirit 
on all humanity, so that old men shall dream dreams 
and young men shall see visions, and even upon the 
servants and the hand-maidens shall the Spirit be 
poured out. In the great experience of the Day of 
Pentecost the disciples realized a fulfilment of this 
prophetic expectation. But that was only the be- 
ginning of fulfilment. In every land the Holy Spirit 
is today giving power to speak for God and wit- 
ness for Christ. In the long dispensation of 
the Holy Spirit grace is poured out upon all man- 
kind. 

Jonah, the It remains to speak of a prophet 

Missionary. whose book is in many respects the 

culminating message of the Old Testament. While 
men have gaped at the whale, they have quite over- 
looked the lesson which the story is meant to teach, 
whether we belong among the severe literalists, or to 
the company of those who understand the prophet 
to be making use of a parable or allegory to enforce 
the truth committed to him. Since questions of 
Biblical criticism are outside the purpose of this 
brief study, let us dismiss from our minds any ques- 
tion regarding the setting of the tale, and go at once 
to the missionary heart of it. 



Message of the Old Testament 49 

A text for Jonah's Acts xi, 1 8, might Well be taken for 
prophecy. the text of the sermon, "God has 

granted to the Gentiles also repentance unto life." 
Jonah runs away Nineveh, the great, had already fallen 
from God. suddenly, irretrievably from her im- 

perial power, — a fall to which the sudden collapse 
of Vienna offers only a feeble analogy, — when Jeho- 
vah purposed to send a message of mercy to the citi- 
zens of this heathen city by the mouth of the proph- 
et Jonah. Jonah arose to flee, not from the perils 
of the journey, but because, as he said, he knew the 
nature of the God who was sending him forth, 'A God 
gracious and tender and long suffering, plenteous in 
love and repenting of evil," and feared that God 
might actually make him the agent of his grace upon 
the heathen. Jonah started to go to the ultimate 
West, the end of the Mediterranean, to get away from 
his hated mission. The hound of heaven, God*s 
hurricane, pursued the runaway and flung him, re- 
pentant, into the sea and into the belly of a great sea 
monster whom God had prepared. Out of the 
depths Jonah cried unto his God and was delivered 
to be sent for a second time on the mission which he 
had refused. 

God's purpose in Though Outwardly obedient, Jonah 
Nineveh. was not in Spirit reconciled to God's 

great purpose of mercy to the inhabitants of a city 
that had not known God's name. The repentance of 
the men ot Nineveh which followed upon Jonah's 
summons, had as its purpose, according to George 
Adam Smith, to teach the chosen people that *'out 
there, beyond the Covenant, in the great world lying 
in darkness, there live, not beings created for igno- 



50 The Bible and Missions 

ranee and hostility to God, elect for destruction, but 
men with consciences and hearts, able to turn at His 
Word and to hope in His Mercy — that to the farthest 
ends of the world, and even on the high places of 
unrighteousness. Word and Mercy work just as they 
do within the Covenant." 

The irony of And the prophet, looking upon the 

God. effect of his message, was not glad, 

but grieved, jealous that the God, the Covenant God 
of Israel, was admitting others to his mercy. Over 
the peevish prophet God caused a great gourd to 
grow as a shade from the fierce sun, and then shrivel- 
ed it with destruction. To the fainting prophet 
grieving over the loss of his gourd, God spoke in 
words of gentlest irony; "Thou carest for a gourd for 
which thou hast not travailed, a thing that came in 
a night, and shall I not care for Nineveh, that great 
city in which there are more than twelve times ten 
thousand children (persons that can not discern be- 
tween their right hand and their left hand) and also 
much cattle?" Thus does God vindicate his bound- 
less love and pity for all creatures that he has made, 
to the jealousy which would appropriate such love 
and pity even for the chosen people. 
We have our If cver an age needed the missionary 

Nineveh. message of the Book of Jonah, it is 

our own. The physical barriers between the nations 
are down. We may take ship to Tarshish and dwell 
in the uttermost parts of the earth, but still our 
jealous hearts are slow to believe in a God of the 
whole world. That God has purposes of mercy to- 
ward England and America, we know, but that Japan 
and China, too, are within the circle of his plan, we 



Message of the Old Testament 51 

seem to question. It is a great thing to discover in the 
Old Testament, in the days of men's ignorance, a 
purpose that includes Jew and Gentile in its ample 
folds, a revelation of a message for Man. 
Summary of Reviewing the ground already cover- 

ground covered, ed, we have found in the very nature 
of the Bible a Missionary Charter; and in its teach- 
ings a Plan of the Ages, evident in the Old Testa- 
ment, clearly revealed in the New. In a brief sur- 
vey of the various divisions of the Old Testament 
Scriptures, we have found definite missionary 
lessons in every part, but most clearly wrought out 
in the Psalms and the Prophets. These missionary 
teachings we have seen include: (i) A statement of 
the blessing for all the race held in trust by the 
chosen people: (2) A growing belief in the coming of 
a universal Kingdom of God under the sway of a 
Messianic ruler: (3) The universality of the Provi- 
dential Government of God among the nations: 
(4) The emergence of a message for the individual 
believer as well as for the nation: (5) The distinct 
teaching that heathen nations are instruments of 
God: (6) The preaching of God's purposes of mercy 
to those outside the law: (7) The sudden coming of 
the Messenger, and the setting up of the Kingdom of 
God. 



OUTLINE OF CHAPTER II. 

aim: To show that the missionary principles laid down in the 
Old Testament are fully revealed in the New in the funda- 
mental teachings of Jesus; in his life; and in his commands 
to his disciples; and that these principles are exemplified 
in the life of the Apostolic Church. 

Rooted in the Old Testament, the New blossoms with 
glorious intimations of universality in the very setting of 
Jesus* life. Its missionary message is found, 

I. IN THE TWO FUNDAMENTAL REVELATIONS OF JESUS. 

1 . His disclosure of God the Father^ transcendent as well as 
immanent; righteous as well as loving; just as well as 
forgiving; fatherly to all men; a Father to his filial sons. 

2. His teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven. 

a. Kingdom of Heaven no new idea. 

b. Cherished as noblest hope of Judaism. 

c. Nature of Christ's teachings about the coming of the 
Kingdom — not by revolution, but by silent transforma- 
tion; not a national privilege, but a universal hope. 

d. The Kingdom at hand. — Why then does it tarry.? 
It need not tarry. 

e. The delayed triumph of the Kingdom implied in his 
parables. 

f. How pass the long night of waiting.? With loyal obedi- 
ence, subordination of all else to the Kingdom; with 
calm confidence in the ultimate triumph of the King- 
dom; with eager longing for its speedy consummation. 

II. IN THE LIFE AND DIRECT COMMANDS OF JESUS. 

I. Jesus was himself a missionary. 

a. His first evangelizing tour, — Woman of Samaria; 
Seed sowing and harvest. 

b. Choice of Twelve Disciples. 

c. Training and sending out of the Twelve. 

d. Enlarging circles of Ministry. 

e. Establishing a base line for the Gospel. 



Message of the Old Testament 53 

2. Missionary commands of Jesus. 

a. Missionary message not dependent on spoken com- 
mand, but inherent in the Gospel. 

b. Command four times repeated, — twice in Upper 
Room; on a hill top; just before his ascension. 

III. IN THE APOSTOLIC TEACHINGS AND LIFE OF CHURCH. 

a. Acts, the great Text-book of Missions, — Expansion 
of Church; strategy of occupation; demand for heroism. 

b. Paul's statement of missionary principles. 

c. Emergence of Missionary Finance. 

d. Lay ministry in the early Church. 

e. Prominence of Women. 

f. Fraternal and Missionary spirit. 

g. Missionary Program of Early Church: An Uplifted 
Christ; Audacity of faith; Participation in the task; 
Reliance upon spiritual means; Willingness to suffer or 
die; A buoyant hopefulness. 

h. Missionary Message of the Apocalypse: Written 
during terrible persecutions to encourage believers; 
Presents Christ's triumphant Kingdom; Social passion 
of Christianity; Doom of Materialistic Civilization; 
Shining vision of New Jerusalem. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MISSIONARY MESSAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 

"The Kingdom is an idea as broad as mankind, as inclusive as life itself, and 
as Christian as the Gospel." Rauschenbuscb. 

From the twilight When we turn from the Old Testa- 

of the Old to the ment to the New in our study of the 
sunlight of the missionary message of the Bible, it 
^^^- is like passing out of a dimly Hghted 

room into glorious sunshine, or Hke walking beside 
a broad, deep river, after following a rill of sweet 
water. For the New Testament is missionary from 
beginning to end; in its plan, in its teachings, in its 
philosophy. In one flashing circlet John iii, i6 in- 
cludes the whole gospel: 

"for god so LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE 
His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEV- 
ETH IN HIM SHOULD NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE EVERLAST- 
ING life/' 

The New Cove- The missionary meaning of the New 
nant rooted in the Testament grows out of the Old as 
^^^- a tree is rooted in the ground, as a 

rose expresses the sweet heart of the rosebud. One 
who reads the New Testament with no background 
of knowledge of the Old would punctuate many 
pages with interrogation points, and much of the 
finer symbolism of the book would be blank to him. 
Jesus based his gospel squarely on the foundation 
laid in the Old Testament. It was in the 'fulness of 
time that God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, 



Message of the New Testament ^^ 

made under the Law, to redeem them that were under 
the Law/ It was in the consummation of an age- 
long purpose of mercy to all mankind that the 
Good News was published abroad. 
♦Intimations of This great purpose is clearly seen in 
Universality/ the very Setting of the life of Jesus. 
The promise of a coming salvation trembles through 
the words of the angel visitant to Mary and Eliza- 
beth; and the joy of the Messiah so long promised 
by the ancient prophets throbs through the music 
of the Magnificat and the Benedicite. 
"The heavens When Jesus is born the very sky 
declare the glory blossoms with angels singing tidings 
of God." q£ ^ great joy which shall be to all 

nations; neighboring shepherds crowd about him, 
and splendid visitors follow his Star from out the 
Ancient East. 

The Gospel in In aged Simeon the Law seems to 
the arms of the stand, holding the new-born Gospel 
^^^* in its arms as he cries, 

"Now, Master, thou canst let thy servant go, and go in peace, 
as thou didst promise; for mine eyes have seen thy saving power 
which thou hast prepared before the face of all the peoples, 
to be a light of revelation for the Gentiles, and a glory to thy 
people Israel." 

Luke ii, 29-32 (MofFatt's translation). 

About him all The infant Jesus is carried into Egypt 
nations cluster. and returns to make his home, not 
in the royal city of David, but 'in despised Naza- 
reth.* Among the crowds which follow him we find 
Romans as well as Jews, dispatriated tax collectors, 
Samaritans, Syro-Phoenicians, Greeks, and African 
Simon of Cyrene, a polyglot cross-section of humanity. 



56 The Bible and Missions 

Above him on the cross stood the inscription written 
in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, in mute prophecy of 
the diffusion of his words among the nations. 

Two centers of On this beautiful background of 
Jesus* thoughto universaHty Jesus paints his gospel 
for man. There are two centers to his thought: 
(i) The Father God, whom he has come to reveal, 
and (2) The Kingdom of God, which he has come 
to establish. 

Christ's Message (i) We have already seen that the 
of the Father. Bible teaching about God was in its 
very essence a trust for mankind. What is true in 
degree about the whole Bible is uniquely true about 
Jesus' thought of God. Above the revelation of the 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ hovers 
the very Shekinah of the New Testament. In that 
light all creedal and national and racial limitations 
disappear as the Son of Man unveils the Eternal. 
The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is 
none other than humanity's one true and living God. 

Both Father and The modern thought of God has 
Lord. swung so far away from the Jewish 

thought of the transcendent holiness ana absolute 
power and justice of God that it comes with a shock 
of surprise to us to find that our Lord, as Titius has 
said, did not emphasize God's omnipotence and infi- 
nite sublimity one whit less than did the Jewish 
view, but rather "deepened it and intensified it to the 
absolute uttermost." It is the Judge of all the earth, 
the God who "can not abide iniquity and the solemn 
assembly," the God who demands clean hands and 
pure hearts in his worshippers, and who is able to 




SCRIPTURE COMMITTEE, NORTH SIAM MISSION 

Translating Proverbs in Lao. From right to left they are: 

Rev. Roderick GilHs, D.D. ; Nai Oh; Rev. Howard Campbell, 

D.D. ; J. W. McLean, M,D. ; Elder Chaiwana ; Rev. Kam Ai ; 

the A. B. S. Agent 



Message of the New Testament 57 

destroy both soul and body in hell (Matt, x, 28) 
whom Jesus reveals as the Heavenly Father. "That 
is the paradox of Christ's revelation of God to us/' 
says Hogg; "Fear and love, — love casting out fear; 
fear deepening and purifying love. Our Father, 
therefore, near us and in us; yet our Father in 
Heaven, and, therefore, at the same time absolutely 
exalted above us." 

Over all and in In the religions that emphasize God's 
all God. blessed immanence, as does Hinduism, men 
forever. ^.^j^^^ Constantly to drift into panthe- 

ism, and to lose any clear conception of the black- 
ness and power of sin, or the necessity of personal 
righteousness. In a religion that emphasizes God's 
transcendence, as does Islam, men tend to dritt 
into formalism and fatalism. Only in the teachings 
of Jesus does mankind find a revelation of God infi- 
nite in holiness and absolute in power, who is also 
the Father, more eager than are earthly fathers to 
give good gifts to their little children, whose love 
runs out to the prodigal while still in the far country, 
and whose Holy Spirit makes his dwelling place in 
the hearts of his humble worshippers. 
God's Fatherhood Jesus' teaching regarding the Father- 
for all mankind, hood of God has become so much the 
possession of man's common thought that it is the 
general idea that the Christian message may be 
summed up in the phrase "Fatherhood of God and 
brotherhood of man." It is, however, necessary to 
distinguish two senses in which the terms are used, 
(i) By the phrase "Fatherhood of God and brother- 
hood of man" is generally meant that all mankind, 
being made in the likeness of God, are his offspring, 



58 The Bible and Missions 

sharing the Divine nature, with the ineradicable 
stamp of his image on their souls, however blurred 
and faint that image may be. 

"Though he is so bright and we are so dim, 
We are made in his likeness to image him.** 

Out of this common relation to our Father, God, 
springs the fact of human brotherhood, overleaping 
all barriers of race or nationality or social condition. 
This great truth is undoubtedly taught in the Bible, 
in the Old Testament by implication, in the New as 
the basis of our Lord's teaching and that of his 
apostles. The Fatherly God who, through all the 
ages, has been going forth to meet his lost son while 
he was yet a long way off; the God in whom there is 
no respecter of persons, is that One from whom every 
fatherhood in heaven and earth is named. 

God's true and (2) But there is a deeper and more 
filial sons. intimate, a more intensive and, there- 

fore, less extensive sense in which the Lord Jesus uses 
the term, that has great force in considering the 
missionary message of the New Testament. Is there 
a sense in which Christ teaches that his disciples are 
sons of God and therefore brothers, which can not 
be affirmed of all men.^ A patient study of his 
words seems to establish this without doubt. It is 
a real spiritual union between God and man of which 
Jesus is speaking, and not of a possible or metaphy- 
sical relationship. It is the gentle, the forgiving, the 
merciful, the peace-makers, who are called children 
of God. It is those who love their enemies, do good 
to those who hate them, pray for their persecutors, 
that are the sons of the Father who is in heaven. It 



Message of the New Testament 59 

is those who do good and lend, never despairing, 
whom Jesus calls sons of the Most High, who is kind 
to the unthankful and evil. It is those who enter in- 
to their secret place of prayer, whose Father, seeing 
in secret, shall recompense; and it is whoever does the 
will of Jesus* Father in heaven whom he recognizes 
as brother, sister, mother.* As John says (John i, 
11-12): 

"He came to his own creation, yet his own folk did not wel- 
come him. But to all who did receive him, to them he has given 
the right of becoming children of God, even to those who trust 
in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the 
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 

A new and living The missionary implications of this 
Way to the Father, truth are momentous. Failure to per- 
ceive it is back of much indifference to the world- 
wide obligation of Christianity. Christ did not come 
simply to reaffirm a divine sonship in which all men 
share. In that case we might rest quite tranquilly 
on the hope that sooner or later all men would enter 
into the privileges of their sonship. He came to re- 
veal a new and living Way to the Father; to make 
possible a new and blessed fellowship with Him, in 
order that through this new relationship He might 
establish the Kingdom of God on earth. 
The absoluteness Unless we understand the nature of 
of Christ's claims, this blessedness revealed in Christ, 
some of his own declarations may sound harsh to us. 
"All things have been handed to me by my Father, and no one 
fully knows the Son except the Father, nor does any one fully 
know the Father except the Son and all to whom the Son chooses 
to reveal Him." 



♦See Shailer Mathews's illuminating discussion of the whole question {Social 
Teachings of Jesus., pp. 64-69). 



6o The Bible and Missions 

"I am the way, the truth, and the Hfe; no man cometh unto the 
Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known 
my Father also; and from henceforth ye know him, and have 
seen him." 

The Riches of Theie IS no harshness here, but only 
God in Christ. a declaration of the exclusive claim 
on human reverence and obedience inherent in the 
nature of the message. God's grace has found a way 
so to express itself through the person and words of 
Christ that the resources of Divinity are placed at 
the disposal of men. It is in Christ we have our 
access, in Christ we realize our sonship, in Christ 
we put off the old man and put on that new life born 
from above; in Christ we who were dead in tres- 
passes and sins are made alive by the power of God; 
in Christ the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. 
This is what the New Testament calls The Good 
News. This it is that we are commissioned to tell 
to the whole, wide world, that God was in Christ 
reconciling the world to himself. 

Privileges of From sheer familiarity with the priv- 

Christian sonship. ileges of Christian sonship, we fail 
to recognize their unique and precious character. 
As a matter of fact, the Christian consciousness of 
sonship is the gift of Christ. It does not exist apart 
from him. One of the glorious privileges of the 
missionary's life is to see the dawning of the new 
sense of sonship in the face of one who learns of its 
possibility for the first time. The consciousness of 
sin forgiven, of the warm, sweet, tender love of a 
Father, God, of springs of love rising in the heart to 
meet his great love, of a new brotherhood with 
fellow man, these are the gift of Christ. 



Message of the New Testament 6i 

Christ's Message (2) Growing out of Jesus* thought of 
of the Kingdom. God was his message of the King- 
dom. The term 'Father' is found oftenest on his 
Hps; but hardly less characteristic is the phrase 
'Kingdom of God' or 'Kingdom of Heaven.' There 
are 122 passages in the Gospels that contain refer- 
ences to the Kingdom; 55 occur in Matthew, 19 in 
Mark, 44 in Luke, and 4 in John. Many of these 
occur in parallel passages. 

'Church' replaces It is significant to note the change of 
'Kingdom.* emphasis that occurred later in the 

New Testament and in the Church. The term 'God, 
the Father,' continues to characterize the other 
books of the New Testament, as it does the Gospels, 
although it is not used half so often in all the other 
books put together as in the Gospels. But another 
idea, 'the Church,' replaces the 'Kingdom of Heaven' 
in the attention of the writers of the New Testament. 
The Kingdom is mentioned eight times in Acts, once 
in Romans, four times in First Corinthians, once 
each in Galatians and Ephesians, twice in Colossians, 
once in each letter to the Thessalonians, twice in 
Second Timothy and three times in Revelation. 
The Kingdom, The missionary message of Jesus' 
no new idea. teaching about the Kingdom will 

become evident as we study a little more closely the 
meaning of the term. We note in the beginning that 
Jesus did not invent it. He simply used it. Neither 
did he define it, as would have been necessary, had 
he introduced an idea strange to the people. He 
took an old idea, widely held and deeply cherished, 
and enlarged and spiritualized it. Doubtless he had 
found the idea in the ancient Scriptures which he 



62 The Bible and Missions 

pondered so deeply and knew so intimately. It is 
fascinating to think of the boy Jesus reading words of 
Isaiah or Jeremiah. How the words would open to 
him 'skyey meanings in which great promises shone 
faithfully like stars!' 

Popular under- What then was the popular under- 
standing of the standing of the term, Kingdom of 
Kingdom. God? In the days of Christ there was 

a widespread expectation of a Messianic Kingdom 
which was shortly to be set up by the direct power 
of God. It was to be a new Jewish State in which 
God's Anointed, tjie Messiah, was to rule in right- 
eousness. All Jews were to be members of the King- 
dom, and all other nations subject. Of its glories no 
pen could fitly write. 

The noblest Now this great thought of the King- 

Hebrew hopes. dom had grown up through the ages of 
Israel's wanderings and sufferings. It meant differ- 
ent things to different minds; to Isaiah and the 
prophets it was a great spiritual hope; to the crowd 
it was often chiefly attractive for its material glories. 
The Kingdom It is one of the mysteries in the his- 
hope shone bright- tory of religion that the very catas- 
estm the dark. trophies and tragedies in the life of 
Israel which seemed likeliest to have destroyed all 
faith in God did, as a matter of fact, arouse ever 
keener and more passionate anticipations of the 
coming Kingdom. In it we may reverently discern 
the revelation of God himself to the soul of his 
chosen people. As ever fresh calamities overtook 
the nation, the prophet souls whispered, 

''Wait for the news of his coming. Soon and sud- 
denly He whom we look for will come into his tem- 



Message of the New Testament 6^ 

pie." The sense of immediacy had but deepened 
during the centuries, until when John the Baptist 
appeared in the wilderness, renewing the proclama- 
tion of the prophets, all Jerusalem flocked out to 
hear him. 

Jesus proclaims After John had been thrown into 
the Kingdom. prison, Jesus Came into Galilee, pro- 
claiming God*s Good News, and this was his proc- 
lamation: "The time has fully come, and the King- 
dom of God is close at hand; repent and believe the 
Good News." That this was the subject of his 
preaching is shown in the summary which Matthew 
gives: 

"Then Jesus traveled through all Galilee, teaching in their 
synagogues and proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom, 
and curing every kind ofdisease and infirmity among the people." 
Matt, iv, 23-25. See also Matt, ix, 35-36. 

The nature pf Throughout the Gospel narrative 
Jesus' teaching Jesus is engaged in teaching his 
of the Kingdom 'disciples the true meaning of this 
Kingdom of God which He has already set up among 
them. His teachings form the very heart of our Chris- 
tian message. In this brief study it will be possible 
only to point out a few of them, 
(a) Not a Jesus refused to bring in the reign of 

revolution; God by a revolution. When He was 

tempted in the wilderness to choose the easy way of 
poUtical revolution, rather than the hard way of the 
Cross, He put it behind him; when the people tried 
to make him a King, He hid himself; to his dis- 
ciples, eager for place and power in the New King- 
dom, He explained that the only greatness in the 
Kingdom was service. 



64 The Bible and Missions 

„ ^ ., 4. f In our work for the Kingdom of God 

But a silent force. . . . i 1 • 1 

It IS most important that this phase 

of our Lord's thought about the Kingdom be kept 
steadily in mind. The Kingdom of God is, indeed, a 
revolutionary force in the world, but it is not to be 
set up by revolution. Silent and unseen as are all 
forces of the first order, the Kingdom works within 
the soul of man and then, when the work is done, a 
new day is ushered in with all the miracle that at 
tends the dawn. 

Temptation to There IS a constant temptation to 
trust in lower forget this and to seek to win the 
methods. world to Christ by the very methods 

he pushed one side; to trust to political reform, to 
social amelioration, to better environment (things 
all good in themselves, and to be desired), to bring the 
Kingdom, and to despise or to overlook the very 
simple measures on which Jesus relied. 
"And Germany Said a social worker in New York, 
had both." ''There are only two things needed 

to reconstruct the world." "What are they?*^ 
asked her friend. "Compulsory sanitation and uni- 
versal education," was the answer. "Has it ever 
occurred to you," replied her friend, "that Germany 
had both in abundance?" 

The might of The follower of Jesus can never ex- 
meekness, pect to advance his Kingdom by a 
resort to violence; he must always believe in the 
might of meekness, and seek to transform life from 
the centre outward. 

(b) Not a national Jesus disappointed the high nation- 
religion, alistic and patriotic hopes of the 
people, and so blighted their budding loyalty. They 



Message of the New Testament 6^ 

were enraged when he pointed out to them in the 
synagogue at Capernaum that on the testimony of 
their own Scriptures God had reached out to show 
special mercy to the widow of Zarephath and to 
Naaman the Syrian. He commended the faith of 
the Roman centurion, saying, "I have not found so 
great faith, no, not in Israel." He raised a monument 
to the faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman. He 
angered and embittered all the orthodox of his 
day by his parables of the vine-dressers and the 
wedding feast. 'The Kingdom of God will be taken 
away from you and given to a nation that will exhibit 
the power of it.'* (Matt, xxi, 28-46.) He held up a 
hated Samaritan rather than the priest or Levite, as 
the good citizen. He spoke the deepest truths about 
his mission to a poor Samaritan woman by the 
wellside. Everything exclusive, haughty, selfish, or 
materialistic in the common idea of the Kingdom he 
swept away. Imagine the wrath excited in patriotic 
breasts when Jesus said: 

"There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall 
see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the 
Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. 

"And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and 
from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the 
Kingdom of God. 

"And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are 
first which shall be last." 

Christianity not The Son of Man Still goes about our 
the property of streets. Still rebukes our narrow ideas 
Anglo-Saxons ^f ^jg heavenly Kingdom, still calls 
us to look up from our preoccupation with secondary 
truths, and look through his eyes of love at mankind. 
We are trustees of the gospel, not its owners. 



66 The Bible and Missions 

Christ's message When John the Baptist^s faith failed 
to John. him in the days of his imprisonment, 

and he began to question the validity of the vision 
which was his on the great day when Jesus had come 
to him for baptism, he sent two of his disciples to 
ask Jesus if He were in reality the Coming One, or 
whether they were still to look for some one else. 
In this request of John it is evident that his faith is 
struggling with his preconceptions of what the King- 
dom of God ought to be like. It is to Jesus himself 
that he takes his perplexity, a touching proof of his 
unshaken confidence in the character of the One on 
whom he had fixed such glowing hopes. In answer 
Jesus quotes another prophecy of Isaiah, a part of 
the radiant vision of the Coming Kingdom contained 
in the thirty-fifth chapter. 

"Go and report to John," said Jesus, "what you have seen and 
heard; that the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the 
deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the Good News 
proclaimed to them. And blessed is every one who does not 
stumble because of my claims." 

It need not The missionary implications of this 

tarry. teaching of the Kingdom are tremen- 

dous. In our Christian fuith we have no simple 
system of ethics, no noble ritual of religious faith. 
We have a great overturning, transforming, revolu- 
tionary power to be released throughout the world. 
The Kingdom now is. Its King is present, working 
by the Spirit of the Living God on the hidden foun- 
dations of the unseen Empire of Jesus Christ. With 
no littleness, no sectarian bitterness, no nationalistic 
hmitations, all Christians everywhere are summoned 
to share in the works which our Lord taught us are 



Message of the New Testament 67 

the marks of his present Kingdom. With all its 
imperfections the missionary cause is today accom- 
plishing these Messianic works among the nations 
on a scale large enough and heroic enough to enable 
the whole Church of Christ to rejoice in what it sees 
and hears of the wonderful works of God. 
(d) The triumph While our Lord teaches the possible 
ofthe Kingdom to immediacy of the Kingdom, he rec- 
be delayed. ognizes also its gradual coming and 

delayed triumph. The New Jerusalem coming down 
from God out of Heaven is ever a 'becoming/ never 
a 'being.' In the Lord's Prayer itself we can clearly 
see that Jesus thinks of the Kingdom as coming on 
this present earth, else why teach us to pray for its 
arrival, and also that it is not yet fully come, else 
why pray for it to come? Whenever we pray, "Thy 
Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is 
in Heaven,'* we are asking for the continuance of a 
process, and for a hastening of the day of consumma- 
tion. 

Parables of the It IS in his parables that Jesus states 
Kingdom. most fully the truth regarding the 

gradual growth and unfolding of the Kingdom of 
God. The thirteenth chapter of Matthew records a 
group of parables regarding the ''mysteries of the 
Kingdom of God," spoken, many of them, as he sat 
in a boat near the shore of Galilee. In the parable of 
the mustard seed we have the growth of the King- 
dom from the least of all seeds to a great tree. In the 
parable of the leaven we have its hidden working in 
those three measures of meal (in which symbol Jesus 
included all mankind in one substance) "until the 
whole was leavened." 



b^ The Bible and Missions 

Jesus explains his Two of these parables, the Sower 
Parables. and the Tares of the Field, Jesus 

himself late rexplained to his disciples. We find that 
by the seed he meant the Word of God, by the Sower, 
the Son of Man, by the field, the world, and by the 
harvest, the consummation of the age. 

"My lord delays In the parable about the waiting 
his coming." servants (Luke xii, 35-48) we have an 
intimation that the return of the Master may not be 
until the third watch of the night, and that in the long 
waiting the servants may grow careless and say in the 
heart, "My lord delayeth his coming." In the parable 
of the pounds (Luke xix, 11-28) the nobleman takes 
his journey into a far country to receive for himself 
a kingdom, and to return. In the parable of the 
marriage feast (Matt, xxii, 1-14), the whole long 
course of Jewish history is summed up under the 
figure of a day; it is not an unreasonable inference 
that the work of the servants whom the king sent 
out to find guests for the marriage supper may cover 
equally extended periods of time. 

Intimations of In the brief parable recounted in 
long, watchful Mark xiii, 34-37, while the purpose 
waiting. jg ^^ inculcate watchfulness, there is 

again indicated the possibility that the coming may 
be delayed not only until "cock-crowing,'* but until 
"morning." Perhaps the clearest intimation in any 
of the parables is to be found in Matthew's great 
story of the Ten Talents (Matt, xxv, 14-30). Here, 
too, the Master, going on a journey, delivers his 
goods to his slaves and departs. Of his return Jesus 
states (verse 19), "Now, after a long time the lord 



Message of the New Testament 69 

of those servants cometh, and maketh a reckoning 
with them." 

The seed growing Perhaps Jesus' thought of the growth 
secretly. and progress of the Kingdom is best 

summed up in the parable of the seed growing secret- 
ly, which only Mark preserves: Chap, iv, 26-^0. 
How pass the long We are now in the period of germina- 
night of waiting? tion, the long night of waiting. Christ 
has given to us each his task, and bidden us to occupy 
till he comes. With what attitude are we to face our 
life? 

(i) IVitb loyal obedience, "Thou sayest rightly, I 
am a King," said Jesus to the Roman Governor, 
asking. He demands the loyalty of all those who 
would belong to his heavenly Kingdom. No call- 
ing him "Lord! Lord!", no working of miracles will 
make up for the plain doing of his will. His Kingdom 
belongs to the childlike, the gentle, the unselfish, the 
loving — only they can enter it. Disciples must take 
his yoke upon them and learn of him. To abjure self 
and take up the cross of sacrificial service is the price 
of following. There is no way to serve him except 
along the road of his commandments. 

(2) With subordination of all else to the Kingdom, 
The sternness of Christ's requirements that the King- 
dom is to be sought as the chief good of life is start- 
ling to those who have taken their ideas of him 
from mediaeval portraits. With regal authority 
Jesus claims the right of eminent domain for the 
Kingdom of God. For it we are to leave home and 
family and country; in its service we are to endure 
hunger and cold and persecution and death itself, but 
"he who endures to the end shall be saved." 



yo The Bible and Missions 

(3) ^ith calm confidence in the ultimate triumph 
of the Kingdom, Jesus never doubted this. The seed 
cast into the ground was to grow secretly; the hidden 
leaven was to work until the whole was leavened; 
lifted up, he was to draw the whole world unto him- 
self; before him as King on his judgment seat were 
to be gathered all nations. He did not doubt in the 
wilderness; he did not despair on the cross; he be- 
queathed his joy and his peace to his disciples and 
bade them go forth with the Good News, because all 
power had been given to him and he would be with 
them always. 

(4) With eager longing for the speedy consummation 
of Christ's triumph. How faint is our hope, how lan- 
guid our endeavor! We take it quite as a matter of 
course that the Kingdom should tarry, and plan 
calmly on centuries of inch-worm progress. When a 
bold young spirit like John R. Mott arose a genera- 
tion ago and with fiery logic actually proved to the 
Church that the world could be evangelized in one 
generation, the Church smiled indulgently at the 
impetuosity of youth, and refused even to take the 
idea seriously. Yet we have seen that Jesus did. 
With terrible earnestness he sent forth his disciples 
to hasten to the ends of the earth with Good News 
that brooked no delay. 

Hastening his There is an expression in the second 
coming. epistle of Peter that is very beautiful 

— "Looking for and hasting the coming of the Day 
of God,'* — or in MofFatt's translation, "You who ex- 
pect and hasten the advent of the Day of God.'* 
Expecting the Day and hastening it! What a glory 
that gives to missionary work! 



Message of the New Testament 71 

The world can The war has given a worldwide il- 
be evangelized lustration of how, under the pressure 
now. of unprecedented need, social pro- 

cesses and changes that ordinarily require centuries 
to effect have been accomplished literally in a day. 
In the great Commonwealth of the Kingdom of God 
there are greater possibilities waiting only the putting 
forth of a supreme act of faith on the part of God*s 
people. The world can be evangelized in this genera- 
tion. 

From teachings We turn now from considering the 
to life. missionary message contained in the 

fundamental teachings of Jesus to (i) his mission- 
ary activities, and (2) his explicit commands con- 
tained in the Gospels. 

"God had one (i) Jesus was himself a missionary — 
Son, and he was one sent with a message. In the 
a missionary." delivery of his message he began by 
calling a group of disciples whom he took with him 
in his journeys as he proclaimed the Good News of 
the Kingdom. He evidently gained disciples, as we 
learn from the account of their baptism (John iii, 
22; iv, I -3). On his way from Jordan to Galilee he 
and his disciples stopped for a two days* mission in 
Samaria, during which the Samaritan woman and 
many of her fellow-citizens came to believe the 
gospel. In confessing their faith these men of Sychar 
use for the first time in history the great phrase that 
is in itself a missionary charter: 

"We no longer believe in him simply because of your state- 
ments, for we have now heard for ourselves and we know that 
this Man really is the Saviour of the World** 



72 The Bible and Missions 

Jesus' talk with This brief missionary journey is not- 
the Samaritan able also because it is the first pro- 
woman, clamation of the Good News of the 
Kingdom beyond the limits of Jewry, and because of 
a saying of our Lord, recorded by John, when his 
disciples returned to find him sitting by the well 
curb, wrapt in the contemplation of his Father's 
glorious will for the world. In his conversation with 
the woman he had^been led from depth to depth, to 
the announcement of his Messiahship, with its gift 
of the Water of Life; to the disclosure of the spirit- 
uality of the true worship of God, — "neither in this 
mountain nor yet in Jerusalem, but in spirit and in 
truth"; and to the deepest truth of all, the seeking 
Father God. Now, withdrawn into the sacred re- 
cesses of his soul, he sits alone, meditating, — may we 
not reverently imagine.^ — on the path along which 
the Father's will is to send his mighty gospel 
throughout the world. 

"Look up and see The disciples break in upon his soli- 
the fields." tude, anxious, hurried, 

"Master, eat something.** 

"I have food to eat," said Jesus, "of which you do not know." 

"Can it be," said the literal-minded disciples, "that any one 
has brought him something to eat?'* 

"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him that sent me, 
and to accomplish his work.** 

Then, as if the nature of the work which the Father 
had sent him to accomplish swept over him, he turned 
and, with a gesture toward the sun-drenched plain 
across which the bright-turbaned throng was al- 
ready hurrying out to him, he continued: 

"Do you say 'It wants four months and then comes the har- 













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T OF CHINA 


ORIGINAL TELEGRAM FROM PRESIDEN 


ON BIBLE SUNDAY, JUNE 29, 1919 


(Translation.) "Instruction concerning^all virtue as contained in the Holy 
Scriptures of the religion of Jesus has truly exerted an unlimited infiuenceifor 
good among all Christians in China and has also raised the standard of all my 
people along lines of true progress. I earnestly hope that the future benefits 
derived from the Holy Scriptures will extend to the ends of the'earth and tran- 
scend the success of the past." 



Message of the New Testament 73 

vest?* I tell you, look around, behold these plains — they are al- 
ready white for harvest!'* 

Sower and reaper Then follow the pregnant sentences 
together. in which our Lord explains that 

spiritual seed-sowing and harvesting proceed togeth- 
er, one man sowing, another reaping, and the 
sower sharing the reaper's joy. "I sent you to reap 
a harvest which is not the result of your own labors. 
Others have toiled atid you reap the fruit of their 
toil." 

Our waiting har- To his Church of the present Christ 
vest fields. still Speaks these words. We, too, are 

apt to think of a remote harvest and to neglect the 
fields that lie all white to harvest under our very 
eyes. We, too, forget that in our work of spreading 
the gospel we are reaping harvests whose seed was 
sown by men long since dead, many of them obscure, 
or unknown to us. 

Jesus chooses With the Opening of the Galilean 
twelve mission- ministry Jesus made a missionary 
^"^8. circuit of all the towns of Galilee 

(Matt, iv, 23; Matt, x, 1-4). Later he chose 
twelve apostles, set them apart for missionary work, 
and gave himself to their training and preparation. 
It is due to an apparent accident of translation that 
these men are known to us as apostles rather than 
as missionaries. It means the same to say "He chose 
twelve missionaries" as to say "He chose twelve 
apostles." In one case the word is derived from the 
Greek, in the other from the Latin; both alike mean 
'one sent,* *a messenger/ 

The Twelve trained On his second missionary tour Jesus 
and sent out. takes the members of his Missionary 



74 The Bible and Missions 

Training School with him (Luke viii, 1-3), and with 
them also go the members of the first Woman's 
Missionary Society. A third itinerary he makes, the 
twelve being with him (Mark vi, 6; Matt, ix, ^^)y 
and then, their training being sufficiently advanced, 
he sends them out by themselves, two by two, on 
their first home mission enterprise. 
The first 'League Matthew tells US the touching reason 
of Pity.* for the organization of this first 

League of Pity. When Jesus saw the crowds he was 
touched with compassion because they were dis- 
tressed and were fainting on the ground like sheep 
without a shepherd. He said to his disciples: 

"The harvest indeed is plenteous, but the labourers are few, 
therefore entreat the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers 
into his harvest." 

Enlarging circles With this prayer in his own heart 
of ministry. he sent them forth with marvelous 

instructions for their journey. Not yet did he send 
them to the Gentiles, their sympathies were too nar- 
row, their prejudices too great. To the lost sheep of 
the House of Israel were they sent, while he himself 
continued his own tireless proclamation of the mes- 
sage, his own loving search for the lost sheep. (Matt. 
xi, I.) Later, during the Perean ministry, the Lord 
sent out seventy disciples into every city and place 
where he himself intended to come, and this time 
he placed no prohibition on their going to the 
Samaritans and the Gentiles. (Luke x, 1-24.) 
Establishing a In Jesus' own ministry he confined 
base line for the himself except in the case of a few 
8°spel. individuals to his own nation. He 

was sent to establish a base from which his gospel 



Message of the New Testament 75 

could go out to the ends of the earth. While embrac- 
ing in his love and purpose the world, he wisely- 
spent himself on preparing a group whom he could 
so charge with his own spirit that through them the 
work for the whole might be done. 
-,. . ^ ^ This missionary strategy has its les- 

Mission strategy. - i t • • i 

son for today. It is easier and more 
thrilling to scatter the Gospel message broadcast over 
a province or a country; but the birds of the air very 
soon pick up such chance sowings. To a prepared 
people and then to a selected group within that 
people Jesus gave himself day and night, that from 
this garden of his planting he might sow the earth. 
(2) The mission- The direct missionary injunctions of 
ary commands of Christ are in line with his teachings 
J^®^^* and his life. We quote more often 

and think more often of one which we call The Great 
Commission. When critics have called attention to 
the fact that the passage in which it occurs (Mark 
xvi, 15-20) is wanting in some of the ancient manu- 
scripts, some have felt greatly disturbed. Whether 
the words belong to the apparently unfinished Gospel 
of Mark or have come down to us from some other 
source does not greatly matter, since like the exqui- 
site little story of John viii, i-ii, they bear all 
the marks of authenticity. It is hard to counterfeit 
the sayings of Jesus. They all bear his image and 
superscription. 

Missionary mes- Even were the Great Commission, 
sage not dependent "Go ye into all the world and preach 
on 'commissions.' ^.j^g gospel to every creature" absolute- 
ly blotted out, the missionary message of the New 
Testament would remain unshaken, for there are 



76 The Bible and Missions 

other unquestioned commands of Jesus to the same 
effect. But even were all these lacking, the obliga- 
tion to spread the gospel would lie with inescapa- 
ble weight upon the Christian conscience. It does not 
depend upon enactment; it inheres in the nature of 
the gospel. We cannot imagine that those early 
Christians, scattered abroad during the first perse- 
cution, went everywhere spreading the Good News of 
God's Message because they remembered Mark 
xvi, 19 or Matt, xxviii, 19. They told because 
their hearts were glowing in the consciousness of a 
great salvation and they could not but speak of what 
they had themselves seen and heard and felt. 
Repetitions of The vaHous forms of Christ's com- 
Christ's great mand to disciple all nations are found 
command. j^ Matt, xxviii, i8-2o; Mark xvi, 

9-20; Luke xxiv, 45-53; John xx, 19-21; Acts i, 
1-8. Each one is precious, each one adding a touch to 
the whole. 

The command in We find from Luke*s introduction 
the Acts. to the Acts that it is his purpose to 

complete his former writing of what Jesus began to 
do and to teach by an account of his continued ac- 
tion through the Acts of the Holy Spirit. Luke tells 
us there that the topic of Jesus' lessons during the 
forty days intervening between his resurrection 
and ascension was The Kingdom of God. The im- 
agination loves to dwell on the wonderful way in which 
the victorious Christ opened up to the wondering 
minds of his apostles God's great Plan of the Ages by 
which through the life and death and rising again of 
his own Son, he was to make possible the salvation 
of the world. 



Message of the New Testament 77 

Witnesses to the Even after these marvelous days of 
ends of the earth, teaching, the disciples still harked 
back wistfully to their early conception of a Mes- 
sianic Kingdom set up by force. 

"Master, is this the time at which you are about to restore 
the Kingdom for Israel?" they asked. 

"It is not for you,** he told them, "to know times or epochs 
which the Father has reserved within his own authority; and 
yet you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon 
you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea 
and Samaria and to the remotest parts of the earth." 

"The faith of the Paul uses a great phrase, "The faith 
Lord Jesus." of the Lord Jesus/* Never was it more 

greatly manifested than when, his earthly pilgrimage 
accomplished, Jesus gave his last charge to his dis- 
ciples. He had no organized church, no buildings, 
no synods, no bishops; there was no treasury, no 
written gospel. On his naked faith in his Father and 
with confidence in those to whose memory he had 
entrusted his own teachings, Jesus sends them forth, 
his commissioned witnesses, to the ends of the earth. 
The four zones of The four zones are significant. There 
missions. is Jerusalem — the place where we 

live; Judea — our native land; Samaria — our neigh- 
bor state, and those "Uttermost Parts of the World." 
Some one has named them parish missions, state 
missions, home missions, and foreign missions. All 
are there, present in the Master's thought, provided 
for in his plan. 

On a hill in Matthew records for us the words 

Galilee, to Jesus Spoke on the hill to the Eleven 

the Eleven. whom he had summoned to meet 

him there. Though the record is very plain that the 



78 The Bible and Missions 

appearing and the command were to the Eleven, 
most of us in our mental picture visualize the five 
hundred who, as Paul tells us, saw him at one time. 
If we picture on that hill in Galilee only the little 
company of men who had loved and known him best, 
and see the mysterious figure of the risen Jesus appear 
before them as they prostrate themselves in wor- 
ship, it adds a wondrous touch of homely honesty 
when Matthew adds "but some doubted/* No 
romancer could have thought of that touch. No one 
not an eye-witness could have added it. It is Mat- 
thew who remembers the shuddering joy with which 
they saw him, and then the questioning eyes which 
he and Thomas turned on the others when the radiant 
figure was no longer visible, saying, ''Did we indeed 
see him? Did we not dream it?" 
The Great No, the Eleven remembered to their 

Commission. dying day the majestic words he spoke 

as he came near them: 

"All power has been given me in heaven and on earth. Go, 
therefore, and make disciples of all the nations; baptize them 
into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Spirit; and teach them to obey every command which I have 
given you. And remember, I am with you always, day by day, 
until the close of the Age." 

Matt, xxviii, 18-20 {JFey mouth) 

The command is This is the fullest report of any of the 
backed by power, commands of Jesus given during the 
solemn ministry of the forty days. Note that the 
command is based upon power, "all power in heaven 
and on earth." "Go, therefore, because I have au- 
thority and power to send you." We need to recover 
more of the soldierly quality of obedience in our 



Message of the New Testament 79 

missionary service. These are our marching orders, 
given by the Supreme Commander to his generals 
with the full sanction of his authority behind them. 
"What are your "What are your marching orders?" 
marching orders?" questioned the old Iron Duke when 
some one asked him whether he believed in foreign 
missions. We are not asked whether we wish to go, 
whether it will do good to go, whether it is practica- 
ble to go. The King has summoned us. It is enough. 
Promise is added To the command with its backing of 
to command. authority Jesus adds his gracious 
promise, "Lo, I am with you all the days." We often 
divorce the promise from the command, but there 
is a question about our warrant for it. It is to those 
who, trusting in his supreme authority, go forth in 
obedience to his command, that our Lord says, "Lo! 
I am with you alway." 

David Living- While battling against obstacles as 
stone's Journal, tangled and impenetrable as Africa's 
own jungle thicket, David Livingstone wrote in his 
journal: 

*'Felt much turmoil in view of having all my plans for the 
welfare of this great region knocked on the head by savages to- 
morrow. But Jesus came and said, *A11 power is given to me in 
heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, and 
lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world!' It 
is the word of a Gentleman of the most sacred and strictest 
honour, and there is an end on't. I will not cross furtively by 
night as I intended. It would appear as flight, and why should 
such a man as I flee? Nay, verily, I shall take observations for 
longitude and latitude tonight, though they may be the last. 
I feel quite calm now, thank God." 

Not orders alone, Our Lord's last words to the Eleven 
but a program. give not only marching orders, but 



8o The Bible and Missions 

a program. In the brief compass of thirty-five words 
we learn to whom the disciples are to go — all nations; 
what they are to do — make disciples; what ordinance 
they are to perpetuate — baptizing them; what meth- 
od they are to use — ''teaching them to observe all 
things whatsoever I have commanded you." We 
have here the universality of the missionary mes- 
sage; its purpose of discipHng the nations; its church- 
ly organization, and its educational and disciplinary 
content. 

A preaching, teach- Those who would reduce missions 
ing church. to purely evangelical proclamation 

of the Good News (Mark xvi, 1 5) find here an equal- 
ly binding command to teach. Those who would 
make missions only social settlements and agencies 
for the diffusion of the blessings and benefits of 
modern civilization find here firmly embedded the 
perpetuation of one of the two ordinances left by our 
Lord to his Church, and by a fair implication the im- 
planting of the Church itself. Rightly has this pas- 
sage been called *The Missionary's Great Charter." 
Luke's Gospel Luke's Other account, given in the 
records the first Gospel (Luke xxiv, 45-49) refers 
worldwide com- to a different occasion from that 
mission. recounted in the first chapter of Acts, 

as is evident from the ninth verse, in which we are 
told that, when Jesus had spoken these words and 
while they were looking at him, he was carried up 
and a cloud hid him from their sight. In the twenty- 
fourth chapter of Luke's Gospel, on the other hand, 
the evangelist is recording the first appearance of 
Jesus to the disciples, on that Sunday evening when 
the doors of the house were locked for fear of the 



Message of the New Testament 8i 

Jews. The two from Emmaus had just come, breath- 
less with their great news, and found that the story 
of the Master's appearance to Simon had already 
preceded them. And, while all were talking and 
doubting and wondering, Jesus himself stood among 
them and showed them the nail prints in his hands 
and feet. 

Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 
and he said, "Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and 
on the third day rise again from the dead; and that proclamation 
would be made in his name of repentance and forgiveness of 
sins to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses 
as to these things." 

Repentance and Here again the missionary accolade 
forgiveness to be is laid on the shoulders of true 
proclaimed to all Christian Knights. The gospel is 
nations. rooted in God's plan of grace for the 

whole earth. In the name of the risen Christ re- 
pentance and forgiveness are to be preached through- 
out the earth and the disciples are to be witnesses of 
the truth. 

The innermost In John's Gospel there is preserved 
heart of the Great another word of Jesus, spoken on 
Commission, ^j^jg y^^j night, which contains the 

innermost heart of the missionary commission. 
"Jesus then repeated. Peace be with you. As my 
Father sent me forth, I am sending you forth," 
John XX, 21 (Moffatt). The Great Commission is 
here given in its highest form. Not simply are the 
disciples to go forth with good news to all nations; 
they are given the same commission which Jesus 
himself received from the Father. Whatever he 
came to do they are to do; whatever his message was 



82 The Bible and Missions 

is their message; the width and height and length 
and breadth of his mission form the only boundaries 
to their mission. *As my Father sent me forth' — 
to the lame, the blind, the deaf, the poor, the pris- 
oner, the stranger, the leper without the gate, — to 
them I send you forth. As my Father sent me forth 
*a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of my 
people Israel,' so I am sending you forth. 'As my 
Father sent me forth not to be served but to serve,' 
so I send you forth. 'As my Father sent me forth, 
not that the world might be condemned, but that 
the world might be saved through me,' so I send you 
forth. 'As my Father sent me forth to endure the 
Cross,' so I am sending you forth, not to cling to my 
Cross, but to carry it. 'As my Father sent me forth 
to overcome the world,' so I send you forth. Never 
were words more glorious spoken to human hearts 
than these. O, the breadth and the length and the 
depth and the height of Christ's meaning in his last 
and great Commission ! 

Summary of mis- In summing Up the missionary mes- 
sionary message sage of the Gospels we have found 
of the Gospels. that it penetrates their entire struc- 
ture; is a necessary outcome of the two fundamental 
teachings of Jesus regarding the Father and the 
Kingdom; is contained in his parables and illustrated 
in his daily deeds; is explicitly stated by direct com- 
mand given under circumstances of the utmost sol- 
emnity, and that these final instructions were re- 
peated at least four times; Luke xxiv, 33-47; John 
XX, 21; Matt, xxviii, 16-20; Mark xvi, 15-20; Acts i, 
1-9. 



Message of the New Testament 83 

Missionary mes- When we turn from the Gospels to 
sage of New Testa- the rest of the New Testament we 
ment outside the find that it consists of Uttle else than 
Gospels. ^j^g account of missionary journeys, 

letters from missionaries to their converts, and a 
prophecy of the complete triumph of the gospel. 

TheActs: the great The Acts, written by Luke as an epi- 
mission-study logue to his gospel to show what Jesus 
text-book. 'continued to do and to teach through 

the Holy Spirit/ is the greatest text-book on mis- 
sions in existence. Here we see the widening circles 
by which Christianity spread out from Jerusalem to 
Rome, the enlarging conceptions wrought in the 
minds of Christian believers regarding the scope of 
the gospel, the strategy of occupation devised by 
master missionaries, and the eternal conflict with evil 
which the gospel meets in establishing its worldwide 
sway. Here we find the substance of the missionary 
message that has power to win the world, — ^Jesus 
Christ, Crucified and Risen from the Dead. 

The expansive Here we find that Christianity, when 
power of a new barely established in Jerusalem and 
affection. Antioch, did not wait to complete 

the task of local evangelization, but pressed out into 
new fields by the irresistible power of its expanding 
life. Where is there a nobler corrective of the point 
of view of those who say, ''There is plenty to be done 
at home," than in the example of that heroic pioneer 
church in Antioch which sent forth its two strongest 
leaders, Paul and Barnabas, on the summons of the 
Holy Spirit? 



84 The Bible and Missions 

"There is that If counsels of self-interest and pru- 
scattereth and yet dence had prevailed, Christianity 
increaseth." would Still be a Struggling Jewish sect 

in the lands at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. 
But the missionary passion had free course and was 
glorified. Antioch, in giving her best to carry the 
gospel to distant lands, found her own spiritual 
strength renewed. It is due to no chance that the 
disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. 
Missionary strate- In the Book of the Acts are lessons 
gy of the Acts. of missionary strategy of permanent 
value. These hurrying missionaries of the Cross do 
not seek solitudes, but the crowded centres of life. 
In the chief cities of Greek and Roman culture and 
commerce they plant the first churches, and from 
these as centres the gospel seed is carried to the 
boundaries of the empire within a hundred years. 
A summons to In the Acts the summons is to the 
Christian heroism, heroism of the crusader. The gospel 
is seen as no beautiful, ethical statement to be ad- 
mired and written about. It is a desperate cause to 
be fought for and died for. Christ's message is pre- 
sented not as something which wins easy acceptance, 
but as a challenge standing squarely athwart human 
selfishness and greed and sin, and so meeting deep 
hostility and opposition. The instinctive recogni- 
tion, on the part of evil forces, of the gospel as a 
deadly foe is disclosed again and again in this mis- 
sion text-book. 

Oniyacompro- When opposition fails to materialize 
mising church in the life of the present day it is be- 
finds smooth cause the Church is not aggressive 

sailing. jj^ asserting Christ's lordship over 



Message of the New Testament 85 

life, as was this Early Church. A compromising 
church finds smooth sailing. A missionary church 
can always count on her full share of head winds and 
tempests. 

Paul's statement In PauFs letters we find a treasury 
of the universal of tremendous statements of the 
gospel. Universal Gospel. To instance but a 

few of them: 

Rom. i, 16; Rom. ii, 10, 11; Rom. iii, 21-24; Rom. iii, 29; 
Rom. V, 15-19; Rom. x, 11-13; I Cor. i, 21-24; II* Cor. v, 18-19; 
Eph. ii, 11-18; I Tim. ii, 3-7. 

Emergence of mis- There is evident also the emergence 
sionary finance, of the problems of missionary finance 
as the expanding work requires increased funds. 
Immediately following Paul's great declaration of 
the universality of God's grace, "Every one without 
exception who calls on the name of the Lord shall be 
saved," he finds it necessary to append a practical 
inquiry: Rom. x, 14-15. 

Giving money These words and those others of 
part of preaching Paul in regard to the missionary 
the gospel. contributions which he was gathering 

among his Gentile converts to take to the poor saints 
in Jerusalem have been read in innumerable mission- 
ary meetings, and have stirred many sluggish con- 
sciences in our days to realize that giving money is a 
part of preaching the gospel. (See Romans xv, 26; 
I Cor. xvi, 1-21; II Cor. viii, 1-15; Acts xi, 29.) 

A beautiful sidelight on the fellow- 
^T^arfy Church. ^^P ^^ ministry which prevailed ir. 

the Early Church is found in the 
personal greetings with which Paul closes his letters. 
Here is reflected no hierarchy propagating the faith 



86 The Bible and Missions 

through solemnly official channels, but groups of 
men and women bound by one fraternal purpose. 
Phoebe is seen hurrying as a messenger from Cen- 
chrea to Rome with the great epistle to the Romans 
safely hidden under her robe. She would seem to 
have been a woman of wealth and prominence. 
Paul tells us that ''she has been a kind friend to many 
including myself." Then there are Priscilla and 
Aquila who have a church in their house, travel about 
on the business of the Kingdom, and endanger their 
lives to help Paul. It is interesting that only once 
does Paul mention Aquila's name first; in all other 
allusions it would seem as if the wife were the real 
leader. In fact, the prominence of women workers 
in these early lists is little less than amazing, when 
the social customs of the times are considered. 
Women workers There is 'Mary who labored stren- 
prominent. uously among you,* 'Junia, my fellow 

citizen, who once shared my imprisonment'; 'Try- 
phaena and Tryphosa, those Christian workers'; 
*dear Persis who has labored strenuously in the Lord's 
work; and 'Rufus's mother who has also been a 
mother to me.' 

Fraternal and mis- In nothing is the fraternal and mxis- 
sionary spirit of sionary Spirit of these early Chris- 
the Early Church, tians more clearly shown than in 
these passing allusions in the epistles. We see them 
packing missionary boxes, sending a messenger seven 
hundred miles to take food and clothing to the mis- 
sionary in prison at Rome, risking life itself in minis- 
try to 'the brethren.' We love the abundant hospi- 
tality of Lydia and of 'that household of Stephanus,' 
'the first converts in Achaia,' who 'laid themselves 



Message of the New Testament 87 

out to serve the saints.' We see the strength of their 
brotherhood in that traveHng band of believers, — 
Sopater of Beroea (the son of Pyrrhus), Aristarchus 
and Secundus from Thessalonica, Gaius of Derbe, 
Timotheus, and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia, 
who accompanied Paul in his return through Mace- 
donia and then went on to wait five days for him at 
Troas. We see it again in the elders of the church of 
Ephesus, who came down to Miletus to see Paul and 
broke into loud lamentations as they kissed him 
farewell, sorrowing because they should see his face 
no more. Paul 'tore himself away from them' only to 
meet another group of believers when the ship touch- 
ed at Tyre, who escorted him outside the town, 
Vomen and children and all,' and kneeled on the 
beach while Paul prayed with them and said good- 
bye. In Caesarea he was entertained by Philip the 
evangelist, who had four unmarried daughters who 
prophesied. When, * after a somewhat lengthy stay,' 
Paul loaded his baggage-cattle and continued his 
journey to Jerusalem, disciples from Caesarea ac- 
companied him on his journey and took him to 
lodge in the house of one of the early disciples, 
Mnason, a native of Cyprus.* 

We are told that the brethren in Jerusalem gave 
Paul a hearty welcome. When he landed in Italy on 
his way to Rome the disciples in Puteoli invited 
Paul to stay with them for a week, and those living 
in Rome walked out to meet him as far as the Ap- 
pian Forum and the Three Taverns. 
Similar scenes AH these and Other homely incidents 
enacted today. picture to US the missionary churches 

*Acts xxi — ^Weymouth. 



88 The Bible and Missions 

of the first century. Similar pictures are to be seen on 
many a frontier where little bands of Christians are 
cheering one another's faith, as they hold the *thin 
red line' of occupation for their Master, Christ. 
Value of mission- The Study of this Missionary Church 
ary study of the of the Apostolic Age is sorely needed 
^^^^' in the present age. The greatest dan- 

ger of the missionary enterprise is that it may be 
officialized, externalized, becoming the cult of a 
group rather than the expression of the church's 
life. No missionary study can so powerfully counter- 
act this danger as the study of New Testament 
Christianity both as interpreted by Christ himself, 
and in the life of the Apostolic Church. 

(i) y^n uplifted Christ, Note the features of 
their missionary program. It was Christ who was the 
substance of their preaching, Christ who was their 
hope of glory, Christ whose was the power in which 
they dared face the might of the Roman Empire. 
No missionary should be sent forth who goes to take 
a question, none who has not in his soul a personal 
experience of Christ's grace and redemption, "the 
inexpugnable reality of the life of God in the soul 
of man." 

(2) An audacity of faith. These men actually ex- 
pected to convert the world. They were eager to 
penetrate unknown regions. Their horizon was ever 
expanding, their courage never daunted. 

(3) A participation in the task. The Early Church 
did not alone support missionaries; it was missionary. 
It did not take pride in the heroic faith of the mis- 
sionaries but feel that its own part was fulfilled if it 
paid the bills and listened with languid interest 




HON. WANG K'AI WEN 

Grand Master of Ceremonies, Presidential Mansion. Peking. China. He helped 

to raise funds for Methodist Centenary, securing a subscription of $1000 from 

the President, $500 from the Premier and amounts from many other^high 

government officials. 

(By permission of World Outlook) 



Message of the New Testament 89 

to the stories the missionaries told of their successes. 
These Httle churches were themselves missionary bee- 
hives. Everybody felt called to tell the Good News. 

(4) A reliance upon spiritual means. Prayer per- 
vaded the life of this Early Church like fragrance. 
They really expected prayer to be answered, and they 
dared to pray for hard and difficult things. They 
walked in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, who honor- 
ed their faith by working mightily through and with 
them. Foreign missions contemplate tasks impossi- 
ble of realization if we are depending upon human 
resources alone. 

(5) A willingness to suffer and^ if need be^ to die. 
One cannot read the catalogue of PauFs privations 
and sufferings (II Cor. vi, 4-10 ; xi, 23-30) without a 
fresh realization that Christ's Kingdom can only 
be established at the cost of lives laid down. The 
enterprise on which we are embarked cost Christ 
his Cross. We cannot win the world unless we are 
willing to pour out life and treasure. 

{6) A buoyant hopefulness. Nothing can quench 
the joy of this Early Church; tribulation, or distress, 
or nakedness, or peril, or sword! Nay, in all those, 
these missionary bands are more than conquerors, 
for they know that nothing can separate them from 
the love of God in Christ Jesus their Lord. We, too, 
need this supreme confidence of hope in a conquering, 
because a risen and present Saviour. 

Missionary mes- The closing book of the NeW Testa- 
sage of the Apoc- ment, the Revelation of St. John, is 
aiypse. ^ fitting climax to its missionary mes- 

sage. In one apocalyptic sunset it floods the Book 
with hope. The Church had fallen on evil days. 



90 The Bible and Missions 

Persecution threatened on every side. Multitudes 
had been thrown into prison for the Name; other 
multitudes had suffered exile. The brutal material- 
ism of the Csesars blasted every green shoot of faith 
and goodness by its idolatrous worship of the 
Emperor. The beloved disciple himself was banished 
to a lonely island. From this as from a throne he 
thundered a message to the fainting Christians; a 
message which they, familiar with the apocalyptic 
writings of the ancient Scriptures, could easily inter- 
pret, but one that would be meaningless to the spies 
of Rome. Think what this message must have meant 
to persecuted bands of Christians who met at dead 
of night in the dark recesses of the Catacombs to 
hear it read. They might be trembling under the 
displeasure of the Emperor whose nod meant life 
or death. John lifted their eyes to One who is Alpha 
and Omega, He who is, and was, and evermore will 
be, the Ruler of all. To each of the persecuted 
churches the glorified Lord writes a message with its 
promise to those who shall overcome, backed by 
Almighty power. Far above the world of sin and 
struggle John bade them see the Great White 
Throne and him who sat thereon. Above the cries 
of human anguish he bade them listen to the chorus 
of praise rising to the Lamb that was slain from ten 
thousand times ten thousand and thousands of 
thousands singing about the throne. He made 
them realize that the day of the oppressor was 
short, that "the kings of the earth, the great men, 
the military chiefs, the wealthy and the powerful" 
who now were persecuting Christ*s followers should 
hide themselves in caves of the mountains while they 



Message of the New Testament 91 

called upon the mountains to fall upon them, and 
hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. See in this 
connection Rev. vii, 13-17. 

Christ's trium- Through all the splendid symbolism 
phant Kingdom, of the poem runs this golden thread— 
Christ is living. He will never forget his own. He will 
cause the right to triumph. Many of the veiled allu- 
sions which were plain to those who first read the 
words illumined by the flaming torches of their 
present circumstances are obscure to us; but the 
main lesson is plain, and carries its missionary mes- 
sage without spilling. In spite of enthroned evil, 
in spite of apparent failure and defection, the King- 
dom of Christ will triumph. It is a universal King- 
dom. Men come into it out of every kingdom and 
tribe and tongue and nation. Great voices in heaven 
are heard to prophesy, 

"The sovereignty of the world now belongs to our Lord and 
to his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever." 

Social implications The social implications of the book 
of the Apocalypse, make the Revelation a great revolu- 
tionary document, one that would assuredly have met 
destruction at the hands of Rome had its full import 
been understood. God is the ruler of nations. His 
will is their supreme law. Great Babylon, the mother 
of harlots and of the abominations of the earth, shall 
be destroyed. 

The doom of The terrific doom song of the eighteenth 
materialistic chapter, 'Great Babylon is Fallen,' 
civilization. could not have been obscure to those 
who knew Hebrew apocalypses and prophecies; but 
they could hardly have felt as we do the social pas- 



92 The Bible and Missions 

sion that sweeps it all. This judgment of Babylon, 
'through whom the merchants of the earth grew rich 
because of her excessive luxury/ this Babylon 'who 
glorified herself and revelled in luxury with her 
cargoes of gold and silver, of fine linen, purple and 
silk and of scarlet stuff'; this Babylon who 'trafficked 
in wine and oil and fine flour and wheat and beasts 
and sheep and horses and chariots and slaves and the 
souls of men'; do we not know her well? In one short 
hour, says the prophet, this great wealth shall be 
laid waste, when God takes vengeance upon her 
because of those slain souls crying to him from under 
his altar, 'How long, O Lord, how long?* 
The shining vision Beyond the vision of judgment meted 
of the New out to all cruelty and oppression and 

Jerusalem. brutal materialism John sees the fair 

shining of the new heaven and the new earth, and 
the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out 
of heaven from God, and hears the voice which says, 

"God's dwelling place is among men 
And he will dwell among them. 
And they shall be his peoples. 
Yes, God himself will be among them.** 

This is the consummation for which we work,- — a 
Holy City, a New Jerusalem,— not the old Jerusalem 
that slew her prophets, the old Rome that debauched 
the nations, the old New York or London that 
traded in the souls of men, but a New City, coming 
down out of heaven^ a New City in a new earth where 
God will make his dwelling among men. 
Co-operating with The Old Testament begins with 
God for a new mankind in a garden; the New closes 
earth. ^j^j^ mankind in a glorious city in 



Message of the New Testament 93 

which there needs to be no church or temple, for 
God's own presence fills it, and the Lamb is the light 
of it. The Bible is always forward-looking. Its 
golden age is never in the past. A great hope blows 
across its pages. A divine Adventure summons the 
souls of men to work together with God for the 
creation of a new earth in which righteousness, no 
longer pilgrim and stranger, is at home; and in which 
the Lamb for sinners slain is loved and worshipped 
by every heart. 

"Will it never come, that age of light and purity of heart? 
Never? Let me not entertain the doubt. Surely there will some 
day be reached that Eternal Gospel promised in the New Testa- 
ment." Lessing. 

"Come forth, out of thy royal chambers, O Prince of all the 
kings of the earth! Put on the visible robes of thine imperial 
majesty, take up that unlimited sceptre which thy Almighty 
Father hath bequeathed thee; for now the voice, of the bride 
calls thee, and all creatures sigh to be renewed." Milton, 



PART TWO 



OUTLINE OF CHAPTER III. 



aim: To set forth the work of translators through whose labors 
the Bible has become the possession of the race; to trace 
the history of the early translations and versions, and to 
follow the missionary translators of the nineteenth century 
as they have grappled with the tremendous task of putting 
the Bible into hundreds of tongues, many of them never 
before reduced to writing. 

I. EARLIEST TRANSLATIONS. 

I. The Greek Septuagint B. C, and the Ancient Versions 
A.D. 

II. PLACE OF THE BIBLE AMONG EARLY CHRISTIANS. 

1 . Highly honored . 

2. Open to the laity. 

3. Used in education of children. 

III. THE BIBLE IN EARLY MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES. 

1. The Greek Church makes the Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopic, 
and Gothic Versions. 

2. Missionary expansion in India and China. 

3. The Gothic Bible of Ulfilas. 

4. Decline of Bible reading in Middle Ages. 

5. The English Bible. 

IV. BIBLE TRANSLATION IN THE MODERN MISSIONARY MOVEMENT. 

1. Bible wonderfully adapted to translation. 

2. Great numbers of translations (Compared to other 
books, 'The Pilgrim's Progress). 

3. Bible Translations essential to missionary progress. 

4. Difficulties of Bible Translation. 

5. Benefits conferred by Bible Translation. 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 95 

V. SOME NOTABLE TRANSLATORS. 

1. William Carey. 

2. Adoniram Judson of Burma. 

3. Robert Morrison, Schereschewsky, Wells Williams, and 
GutzlajfF of China. 

4. Brown and Hepburn of Japan. 

5. Hiram Bingham, Henry Nott, John Williams, John G. 
Paton, and W. G. Lawes of the Pacific Islands. 

VI. ROMANCES OF BIBLE TRANSLATION. 

1. In Madagascar. 

2. In Darkest Africa (Pilkington of Uganda). 

3. The White Man's Book of Heaven. 

4. The Dakota, Navaho, and Cherokee Bibles. 

5. In Moslem lands. 

VII. BIBLE TRIUMPHS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

1. Translation of Scriptures a mighty achievement. 

2. Strategy of Bible Translation. 



CHAPTER III. 



EVERY MAN IN HIS OWN TONGUE 

"The most important single agency in the work of evangelization is the 
Bible." John R. Mott. 



r>Ki T- 1 ^' We have seen in the first two studies 

Bible Translation. , i t^ • i i • • 

that the Bible in its nature and 
teachings is fundamentally missionary, a book built 
for man and carrying a message for man. In the 
present chapter we shall study the process of trans- 
lation by which the Bible itself became the active 
agent in the dissemination of Christian truth. 
The Septuagint The process of translation, as we have 
Version. seen, began in the third century be- 

fore Christ, when the Old Testament was translated 
into Greek, then the common language of trade, 
commerce, and intercourse between nations. With 
the wide dispersion of the Jews among the countries 
surrounding the Mediterranean, multitudes of them 
came to use Greek as their mother tongue. The in- 
fluence and popularity of this version may be judged 
from the fact that the quotations from the Old Testa- 
ment which appear in the New are for the most part 
taken from the Septuagint and not from the Hebrew 
original. 

Earliest versions of With the rapid spread of Christianity 
the Christian era. during the first three centuries there 
arose a demand for the translation of the Scriptures 
of the Old and New Testaments into the mother 
tongue of races that received the gospel. The earliest 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 97 

of these *ancient versions/ as they are called, are the 
Syrian, Armenian, Coptic, Latin, and Ethiopic. 
The Scriptures These early versions are an evidence 
among early of the exalted place which these early 

Christians. Christians gave to the Bible. Their 

Christianity was a Hving religion, an actively propa- 
gating faith. It could not do without its Bible. Jews 
were to be convinced that Jesus was the Messiah; and 
this could be done only through their ancient 
Scriptures. Heathen nations were to be won, and 
they, like the Jews, needed the Bible. The sacred 
Book was not a fetich kept in charge by a hierarchy; 
it was the voice of God speaking in reproof, in in- 
struction, and in upbuilding in righteousness. 
Use of the Bible The great German critic Harnack has 
by the laity. triumphantly proved by an examina- 

tion of the writings of the Church Fathers that the 
Bible was open to all Christians during these early 
centuries. More than that, the duty of daily Bible 
reading was enjoined upon all, catechumens and 
mature Christians alike; and the practice of a daily 
'lectio^ or Bible reading prevailed in family life. 
It is amazing, in the light of later prohibitions, to 
learn that during the whole of the first thousand years 
of the Christian era no instance is known either of 
prohibition or restriction of Bible reading. 
Church Fathers on There is not here space to quote from 
Bible reading. Clement, Polycarp, Tatian, Justin 
Martyr, and other early Church Fathers, but it is 
worthy of note that three of them say that they 
themselves became Christians through the reading 
of the Holy Scriptures. Harnack shows that during 
the period from Irenseus to Eusebius, while the Church 



98 The Bible and Missions 

Fathers were formulating church discipline in regard 
to baptism and the Lord's supper, no one ever 
thought of withdrawing the free use of the Scriptures 
from the laity, but, on the contrary, bishops and 
teachers united in urging the industrious reading of 
the Scriptures. Irenseus says that the Holy Scrip- 
tures must, as far as possible, be read by each for 
himself. Clement writes that married people should 
pray and read the Scriptures together. He also says 
that the best time for Bible reading is before the 
chief meal of the day. The deepest reason for the 
reading of the Scriptures is that given by Cyprian. 
Tn prayer,' he says, Ve speak to God, but in reading 
the Scriptures he speaks to us.' Origen considers 
one or two hours daily not too long a time to devote 
to divine things. He tells us that his father had made 
a special point of seeing that his son was instructed 
in the Scriptures and made him each day learn by 
heart and repeat some passage. 

Children trained It brings these far-away Christians 
in the Scriptures, very close to US when we find instruc- 
tions that 'children in Christian homes should be 
introduced to the Bible from the very earliest age.' 
'Little boys and girls should learn to put together 
Biblical names with their ivory letter-blocks, choos- 
ing the names from our Lord's genealogies.' 'Little 
girls from seven years onward should learn the Psalms 
by heart and should have read the Bible through be- 
fore the age of maturity.' "We have here," says 
Harnack, "a glimpse into the home of an ordinary- 
Christian citizen; the children daily hear the Scrip- 
tures read and learn passages of them by heart; a 
Bible was not only in the home; the Bible was the 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 99 

principal text-book of education; the chief aim in the 
whole training of a child was that he should be 
taught to understand the Bible." It was no accident 
that such use of the Bible made a missionary church 
and created the need of the first great translations. 
Translations by The Eastern or Greek Church was 
the Greek Church, especially active in this work of 
translation. To the labors of its earliest missionaries 
are due the translation into the vernacular tongue 
of Egypt, the Coptic version; the Syriac version, 
notably that known as the Peshito; and the Ethiopic 
or Abyssinian version. The limits of our study do 
not permit a detailed account of these ancient ver- 
sions. The Coptic Bible is still used in the worship 
of the Coptic churches of Egypt, an ancient church 
long moribund, but now, under the stimulating con- 
tact with the American Mission, rising to new life. 
The Syriac The Syriac version exerted a wide- 

Version, spread and commanding influence for 

centuries. The churches of Syria, Armenia, Persia, 
and Mesopotamia sent their missionaries far into 
the east and south, carrying the Bible with them. 
Monuments of this early missionary expansion still 
exist. In Southern India there is a large body of 
Christians known as the Syrian Christians, which 
has maintained an unbroken existence from the 
earliest years of the Christian Era. These Syrian 
Christians in Travancore and Cochin claim that the 
Apostle Thomas himself was the founder of their 
church. Whatever be the truth of this tradition it 
seems certain that early in the fourth century a bish- 
op from Edessa, with a large following of those who 
were driven out from the Persian Empire during 



loo The Bible and Missions 

the severe and long-continued persecutions of the 
Christians, came into India. 

Syrian Christians During the time when Portugal dom- 
of South India. inated South India these Indian 
Christians suffered persecution to force them to 
submit to the Church of Rome. These persecutions 
ceased only with the coming of Dutch and, later, 
British rule. There are today two bodies of these 
Syrian Christians, the Roman Catholic numbering 
about 300,000, and the Syrian Christians proper, 
not quite so many. These last are undergoing a 
wonderful awakening, sending their sons to modern 
schools, overcoming ancient sectarian prejudices 
and taking on a new sense of responsibility for 
Christianizing the communities in which they dwell. 
TheNestorian A monument to the far-flung mis- 
Tablet, sion line of the ancient Nestorian 
Church was disclosed in the discovery of the Nestorian 
Tablet at Si-nan-fu in Northwestern China. It was 
in 1625 that a Chinese laborer, digging the founda- 
tions of a house, unearthed a great slab, seven and 
one-half feet high by three feet wide. This was 
covered with Chinese characters surrounded by 
others which the Chinese could not decipher. It was 
in a state of perfect preservation. Jesuit missiona- 
ries made known the discovery of this treasure, but 
no attention was paid to it. Semedo, the priest who 
reported the discovery, was later transferred to South 
India, where he learned that the strange characters 
were undoubtedly Syriac. The Nestorian Tablet 
continued to excite discussion and for the most part 
derision (Voltaire scoffed at the idea of its authen- 
ticity) until 1853, when the American Oriental 



Every Man in His Own Tongue ioi 

Society, on the instigation of an American missionary, 
Dr. E. C. Bridgman, began a scientific investigation. 
A great sinologue, Mr. A. Wylie, made the investiga- 
tion, found the tablet, took a rubbing of it and 
published his translation. His findings and transla- 
tion were confirmed by later visitors before the 
precious monument was broken and partially defaced 
by vandals. The tablet contains an edict by a 
Chinese Emperor in 746 A.D. It eulogizes Christian- 
ity, gives a brief summary of Christian doctrine, 
speaks of twenty-seven sacred books (the New Testa- 
ment), of baptism, and of the Trinity. It further 
recounts the arrival of the missionaries in 635 A.D. 
and commends the new faith. The square border 
contains lists of the names of the priests and officials. 
Monuments of This ancient monument in China and 
Syrian missions, the three Persian Crosses with their 
old Syriac inscriptions found during some excava- 
tions near Madras, South India, are the permanent 
witnesses to the missionary activities of these Syrian 
Christians. The inscription about the cross in the 
India tablet reads: ''Let me not glory except in the 
Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.''"^ 

The Vulgate of The greatest translation of the Bible 
St. Jerome. during the early centuries of Chris- 

tianity was that by St. Jerome into Latin, common- 
ly called the Vulgate. This great version displaced 
earlier and crude Latin translations and became the 
authoritative Bible of the Roman Church. As the 



*Note: A picture of the tablet and also of the Nestorian Tablet found in 
Si-nan-fu, with the translation of the same, may be found in the Conversion of 
India, by George Smith (Revell, 1894), pp. 20-25, 2^47-250, also in Two Thousand 
Years of Missions Before Carey , L. C. Barnes, pp. 91, 109. 



I02 The Bible and Missions 

Eastern Empire broke up and the use of Greek de- 
clined, the Vulgate became the only Bible generally 
accessible in Europe, during the Middle Ages. The 
Vulgate, indeed, was the text from which the first 
great English translation, that of Wyclif, was made. 
The Bible of Before we leave the subject of these 

Ulfilas, the Goth, early translations one more must be 
mentioned, that of Ulfilas into Gothic during the 
middle of the fourth century, in order to give the 
gospel to the barbarian tribes who were continually 
pressing down upon the old Roman Empire from the 
north. The civilization of the Roman Empire was 
saved from complete destruction at the hands of 
the barbarians, because these conquering hordes had 
been in part already redeemed from barbarism by 
the missionaries of the Cross. Among the greatest 
of these was Ulfilas, who for the love of Christ and 
his gospel left the city of Constantinople and 'all 
its luxuries' to bury himself among the Goths in the 
dark forest, beyond the Danube. Before he died in 
381 A.D. Ulfilas saw practically the whole Gothic 
nation following in the footsteps of their King 
Athanaric in the profession of the Christian faith. 
The Goths had no written language. Ulfilas in- 
vented one, borrowing some of his letters from Latin 
and Greek. They had no books. He translated the 
Bible for them, and it was circulated in manuscript 
among their roving tribes as their chief treasure. 
"We know," says Gibbon, "that the Goths and 
Vandals alike carried it with them on their wander- 
ings through Europe. The Vandals took it into 
Spain and Africa and with their leader Genseric It 
came round to Rome." A fragment of this earliest 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 103 

writing in Germanic speech has been preserved for 
us and is now cherished in the hbrary of the Univer- 
sity of Upsala, Sweden. The manuscript is written 
in letters of silver on purple vellum. Other fragments 
of the Bible of Ulfilas have been recovered from 
various monasteries. 

Decline of Bible During the break-up of the Roman 
reading and re- Empire the number of schools and 
vivai in Eleventh readers declined, and the Church steadi- 
Century. jy advanced in its hierarchical and 

liturgical features. It gradually came about that 
only the 'religious/ that is, those in monasteries or 
the priesthood, were expected to read the Scriptures. 
It was felt to be inexpedient to translate the Holy 
Writings into the crude new vernaculars of the 
people. Most people were illiterate and did not 
want the Bible, because they could not read it. 
But in the eleventh century, with the awakening of 
civilization, reading again became popular and the 
people suddenly began to want to read the Bible. 
The Church, fearful of heresy, opposed the idea of 
lay-reading of the Bible; but the idea would not 
down. In various parts of Europe different men 
began the attempt to translate the Bible into the 
mother tongue of the common people, undeterred 
by the fact that such attempts were sternly suppress- 
ed and often resulted in the imprisonment or execu- 
tion of the translator. 

The English The greatest among all the European 

Bible. translations are the English and 

German. Wyclif, Tyndale, Coverdale, and the later 
translators made the Christian Scriptures accessible 
to the common people of England, in a translation 



I04 The Bible and Missions 

that is acknowledged to be the greatest literary 
masterpiece of the English language. The circula- 
tion and influence of Wyclif s version is shown by 
the fact that, although every copy that could be 
found was burned, one hundred and seventy copies 
are still preserved. Lord Bacon tells us that at the 
time of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, when the 
petitions for the release of political prisoners were 
presented to Her Majesty, one of her courtiers told 
her that there were five other prisoners long and 
unjustly detained in prison. When asked to name 
them the petitioner replied that they were the four 
Evangelists and the Apostle Paul, who had long been 
shut up in an unknown tongue, so that they could 
not converse with the common people. 
Bible best adapted Our main business in this chapter is 
to translation. to trace the work of Bible translation 
in the modern Missionary Movement. The phenom- 
enon of Bible translation is without parallel in vast- 
ness and variety. No book was ever translated so 
often or into so many languages. No book ever stood 
the test of translation so triumphantly. The Bibls 
neither shrinks nor fades in the process of transla- 
tion. Just the opposite is true of many of the sacred 
books. The Koran, for example, from the sonorous 
beauty of its Arabic style retains its charm for the 
Moslem mind, — but translate it! Of the result 
Carlyle says: "A wearisome, confused jumble, crude, 
incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness, en- 
tanglement, insupportable stupidity, in short." 
John Ruskin says: "I have read three or four pages 
of the translation of the Koran, and never want to 
read more.'* 



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Every Man in His Own Tongue 105 

Bible translations At the beginning of the modern era 
ofthe last century, of missions the Bible had been trans- 
lated into 28 languages. Since the opening of the 
nineteenth century the Bible has been translated in 
whole or in part into 456 languages; the complete 
Bible into 112 languages, the New Testament into 
III more languages, and one or more books of Scrip- 
ture into 233 other languages. Taking all agencies 
into account the Bible, in whole or in part, has now 
been translated into 600 distinct forms of human 
speech. There are still languages and dialects, 
spoken by people, into which the Bible has not yet 
gone. These are for the most part the languages not 
yet reduced to writing. In translating the Bible the 
missionaries have often needed to create an alphabet 
and written form for the spoken words. They have 
discovered to the people the capacity of their own 
tongue. 

Translations of When the vast work of Bible trans- 
Bible compared lation is compared with the trans- 
with those of lation of Other great works of litera- 
other books. ^^-e, its unique position becomes 

evident. 

The Pilgrim's The book that stands next to the Bi- 
Progress. ble in the number of its translations is 

The Pilgrim 's Progress^ which has been put into one 
hundred languages. 

Bible translation The value of this network of Bible 
essential to mis- translation spread over the whole 
sionary progress, ^^j-ld Can hardly be overestimated. 
The problem of creating a self-sustaining, self- 
propagating church in a non-Christian country 
seems bound up with the supplying of the Bible in 



io6 The Bible and Missions 

the mother tongue and with making it accessible 
to the ordinary individual. In the ancient mission- 
ary enterprises of the Church this was not done. 
The Syrian Church made no translations, but took 
its Syriac Bible into India and China. The Roman 
Catholic missionaries were for the most part content 
to allow the Gospel to remain wrapped in its Latii\ 
vestments. The heroic Jesuit missionaries who en- 
deavored to win the North American Indians to 
Christ left no permanent impress, as they left no 
Gospels. Their great work in Japan was the more 
easily stamped out by the persecutions of the 
seventeenth century because the hundreds of thou- 
sands of Japanese Christians had no Japanese Bible 
on which to nourish their faith. On the other hand, 
the newly evangelized Christians of Madagascar 
lived through twenty-five years of the most awful 
persecution, increasing meanwhile from a handful to 
thousands, because they had the Bible in their 
possession. 

Difficulties of The difficulties of translating the 
Bible translation. Bible are enormous. In addition to 
those that inhere in any work of translation there 
are special difficulties due to the Bible's elevation 
of thought, and to the extremely backward condition 
of many of the peoples into whose language the Bible 
has been translated. There is the difficulty of ter- 
minology. How express abstract ideas like sanctifi- 
cation, justification, salvation, retribution, faith, in 
the language of barbarians or savages P In Tahitan 
there was no word for jaith or conscience^ in the 
Maori tongue no word for hope or law. Yet these 
difficulties have been overcome. The stories of a 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 107 

missionary's search for a word often cover months 
or even years in which he has been trying to explain 
the idea to the natives. They have assured him 
that they had no word to express such an idea, and 
then some day a word used in a more Hmited way 
proves just the one sought for. 

Hunting for Among the Kele people in the Congo 

'thanksgiving.' Mr. Millman of the English Baptist 
Missionary Society had long sought the words for 
"thanks," "thankfulness," "thanksgiving," but with- 
out success. One day he killed a leopard which had 
the day before attempted to carry off a poor woman's 
little daughter. The mother, leading a band of wom- 
en, came to his house to sing her gratitude. The 
first word of her song was Kele kele. In telling the 
story later one of the school boys said, "She gave the 
white man kelekele.*' Here was the word out of which 
Mr. Millman could make the various forms to indi- 
cate the idea of 'thanks' in his translation of the 
Bible. 

Where there are When the Moravian missionaries in 
no sheep or New Guinea translated the Lord's 

shepherds. Prayer they had to substitute "Come, 

thou Chieftain Great" for "Thy Kingdom Come." 
In Alaska, where there are no sheep nor shepherds, 
the missionaries rendered the opening words of the 
twenty-third Psalm by "The Lord is a first class 
mountain hunter." In Greenland, John's words, 
'Behold the Lamb of God,' had to be rendered by 
substituting the name of the only animal about 
which the people had thoughts of tenderness, "Look 
God's little Seal!" 



io8 The Bible and Missions 

Enlarging a Imagine the difficulties of a trans- 

people's soul. la tor who tries to phrase "the shadow 
of a great rock" in the language of Pacific Islanders 
who have never seen a rock, or to translate "hoar 
frost/* "ice/* "snow/* for the natives of Equatorial 
Africa, or the "Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the 
Valley** for the inhabitants of the frozen north. 
Think of tribes who have no word for "conscience** 
or "chastity** or "virginity/* and see by what dis- 
cipline the translated Bible enlarges the soul of a 
people. 

Difficulties in the Nor are the difficulties of transla- 
translator's heart, tion ail exterior to the translator. 
The greatest assets are in his soul and mind; in his 
grasp on the truth, his knowledge of the new language; 
his appreciation of delicate distinctions ofmeaning;his 
ability to orientalize himself so as to "think black'* 
with the African, or think Chinese with the Chinese; 
his willingness to lay aside prejudice and preconcep- 
tion so that the Book may flow through his mind 
unwarped and uncolored by sectarian or theological 
twists of his own; his pluck and endurance and un- 
wearied patience. All these enter into the making of 
a translation and make its excellence. It is the fight 
in his own soul that is the real battle ground in 
translation. 

Benefits of Bible The difficulties attending the trans- 
translation, lation of the Bible sink into insignif- 
icance when we contrast them with the benefits 
which the translators have conferred upon mankind. 
Without their aid the modern science of Philology 
could hardly have been created. No motive less com- 
pelling than that which drives the missionary to live 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 109 

In desert and savage regions of the earth could have 
induced scientists to bury themselves for a lifetime 
in intimate daily association with degraded or savage 
peoples. The desire to reduce a ^language of clicks 
and grunts and squeaks and hiccoughs' to writing 
is hardly strong enough to compel the necessary 
sacrifice. From the days when Ulfilas reduced to 
writing the language of the Goths and gave them 
their Bible, and Cyril and Methodius invented an 
alphabet for the Slavic peoples, and translated the 
Scriptures into their language until the present 
time philological studies have been based largely upon 
materials supplied by missionary translators. It is 
necessary to mention only Carey's Sanskrit studies 
and his polyglot attainments in the languages of India, 
Koelle who compared one hundred African languages 
and dialects in his book, Polyglotta Africana^ and 
for these studies was awarded the Volney Prize in 
1853 by the French Institute, Mr. J. T. Last of the 
Church Missionary Society and Rev. W. H. Staple- 
ton of the English Baptist Mission who have greatly 
furthered the scientific study and classification of 
the languages of the Congo tribes. 

The science of Lexicography is equally indebted to 
these missionary translators. In order to make Bibles 
they have needed to make dictionaries. These dic- 
tionaries have been indispensable to the diplomacy 
and commerce of Western nations with the Orient. 
To mention but a few: there is the astounding 
Dictionary of all Sanskrit-derived languages made 
by William Carey and destroyed by fire in the 
printing house of Serampore; there is the same 
missionary's three-volume Bengali dictionary. There 



no The Bible and Missions 

are Judson's monumental Burmese dictionary, Morri- 
son's Chinese dictionary, published by the East 
India Company at an expense of $60,000, and the 
later work of S. Wells Williams. These books 
have laid the whole modern world in debt to their 
authors. Hepburn's dictionary of Japanese opened 
an era of contact between Japan and outside nations. 
The German-Tibetan and the English-Tibetan dic- 
tionaries are both the work of one Moravian mission- 
ary. Rev. H. A. Jaschke. James S. Dennis, in his 
Christian Missions and Social Progress, vol. Ill, pp. 
409-420, lists sixty-one dictionaries of different African 
languages, among them the monumental dictionary 
of the Kaffir language in five hundred octavo pages, 
double columns, which occupied well-nigh the whole 
lifetime of Albert Krapf. There are thirty-seven 
dictionaries in the tongues of British India, among 
them the Tamil-English dictionary of Dr. Miron 
Winslow, consisting of 67,452 words; of these 30,551 
were listed for the first time by this missionary 
lexicographer. The various dialects of China are 
served by twenty-one dictionaries. 
William Carey, The life stoHes of these missionary 
translator of the translators are of surpassing interest. 
Book. Prominent among them all is William 

Carey, a man worthy to stand among the few most 
highly endowed men of all time. His life is too well 
known to need retelling; but many who are familiar 
with his services as a great missionary pioneer do 
not realize his superb gifts as a linguist. 
Extent of his Carey made or edited, between the 

labors. years 1801 and 1822, thirty-six trans- 

lations of the Scriptures; six were versions of the en- 



Every Man in His Own Tongue hi 

tire Bible, and twenty-three, of the entire New 
Testament. Not only were these translations made, 
but they were published, every step of the mechani- 
cal process being attended with incredible toil. 
When the traveler looks upon that row of ponderous 
tomes preserved in the library of the college founded 
by Carey at Serampore, and realizes that these and 
more are the product of one man's labors, or of his 
revision and direction of other men's work, the 
achievement seems superhuman. In addition to 
these thirty-six translations Carey edited and 
printed eight other versions for whose translating 
he was not responsible. It is not to be forgotten that 
he himself had to break ground, being for the most 
part without lexicons, grammars, and commentaries. 
Says Henry C. Vedder: 

"The mythical labors of Hercules are a feather-weight com- 
pared to Carey's actual labors. Well does he deserve the title 
that has been bestowed upon him, the Wyclif of India. Before he 
died, through his agency the Scriptures had been given in their 
own language to three hundred and thirty million people, one- 
third of the entire population of the globe; and two hundred and 
twelve thousand copies of these versions had been issued from the 
Serampore presses. Surely, it has been seldom given to any man 
to do a greater work than this, one more far-reaching in its 
consequences, more lasting in its results." 

Adoniram Judson, Adoniram Judson of Burma is an- 
his sufferings for other of the noble army of transla- 
Burma. ^ors whose exploits are part of the 

imperishable glory of the Christian Expeditionary 
Forces. In one respect, that of his sufferings for 
Christ, it is doubtful whether any other missionary 
since Paul has surpassed Judson. 

Burma was at that time a^i independent king- 



112 The Bible and Missions 

dom, under the rule of a debased and despotic govern- 
ment. When war broke out between England and 
Burma, Judson was seized and thrown into the death 
prison. 

The Book in a In order to protect the precious manu- 
piilow. script of the portion of Dr. Judson's 

translation of the Bible already completed, Mrs. 
Judson had hidden it in a pillow which she sewed 
up in a stout pillowcase and took to her husband for 
his comfort in his imprisonment. When the prisoners 
were suddenly removed from Ava to Aungbinle, the 
pillow was carelessly thrown out into the yard. From 
here it was rescued by a faithful servant, who kept 
it hidden until the war was over and he could restore 
it to the Judsons. Thus were the precious pages, the 
work of years, preserved. 

judson's task It was twenty-one years before Adoni- 
completed. ram Judson finished his translation 

of the entire Bible into Burmese. His fine scholarship, 
refusal to be satisfied with anything short of the best 
possible Burmese phrase, and unremitting toil com- 
bined to make this Burmese translation basic for 
any later work of revision, as Luther's Bible in Ger- 
man, and Tyndale's translation in English are basic. 

Importance of A major Strategic operation in Chris- 
translating Bible tianity's conquest of the world was 
into Chinese. the translation of the Bible into 
Chinese, the language of one-fourth of the human 
race. To make the Christian message available to 
such a fraction is by virtue of its very vastness an 
outstanding fact in the story of human progress; but 
where the achievement is weighed as well as sur- 
veyed, its true importance appears. 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 113 

Robert Morrison, As ever in any great enterprise, there 
master workman, is in this enterprise of translating 
the Bible into Chinese one outstanding man, Robert 
Morrison of England. In his early manhood he had 
dedicated himself to the work of Christ. He wrote: 

"Jesus, I have given myself to thy service. The question with 
me is, where shall I serve? I learn from thy Word that it is thy 
holy pleasure that the Gospel should be preached in all the 

world, for a witness to all nations When I view the field, O 

Lord, my Master, I perceive that by far the greater part is en- 
tirely without laborers whilst there are thousands crowded 

up in one corner. My desire is, O Lord, to engage where laborers 
are most wanted." 

God granted him his desire and sent him to China, 
where he worked faithfully against terrible obstacles 
to give the gospel to the Chinese. Since all public 
presentation of Christianity was forbidden, he saw 
that his one line of access lay in the preparing of 
books. He gave his remarkable powers to the study 
of Chinese. He prepared a grammar and an Anglo- 
Chinese dictionary. After sixteen years he published 
his dictionary, containing forty thousand words. 
In its preparation he had consulted ten thousand 
Chinese volumes, and gained a knowledge of Chinese 
writings such as no European had ever possessed. 
The East India Company published the dictionary 
in six huge volumes, at a cost of j^6o,ooo. 

God's Providential God had been the great Pioneer, as 
preparation. he always is in making paths in the 

desert along which the human pioneer may find his 
way. An unknown Catholic missionary had com- 
pleted a translation of part of the New Testament — ■ 
Acts, Luke, and some of the Epistles — and his for- 



114 The Bible and Missions 

gotten manuscript was discovered by Morrison 
in the British Museum. A Chinese man was found 
living in London, at that time a very unusual cir- 
cumstance. This man guided Morrison in his first 
explorations of the language, and taught him how 
to use a Chinese camel's-hair brush in writing 
Chinese characters. With the help which this man 
could give him, Morrison began, and in a few months 
completed transcriptions of this manuscript copy of 
the New Testament. He took this book with him to 
China, and also a copy of a Latin-Chinese vocabulary 
which he had made in the same laborious manner. 
While very imperfect, these both proved valuable to 
him in unlocking the mysteries of the language. 
Publishing and The salary received by Morrison from 
distributing first the East India Company for his 
Chinese Bibles. services as translator enabled him 
to carry on his ceaseless studies in the preparation 
of a Bible for the Chinese. He was joined in these 
labors by Robert Milne, who worked with him with 
one heart and soul in the great enterprise. The Gos- 
pel of Luke was published in 1813, the New Testa- 
ment in 1 8 14, and the entire Bible in 18 19. The 
death penalty was still in force against any Chinese 
who adopted a foreign religion, and so Morrison and 
Milne were forced to distribute their Bibles for the 
most part among the Chinese who had emigrated from 
their own land and were both more liberal and more 
accessible. They were distributed in the Chinese 
colonies in Java, Molucca, and Penang. An indica- 
tion of the difficulties of Bible distribution in those 
days is given in a report written in 1822, in which it 
is recorded as "a matter for profound gratitude to 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 115 

God that during the year five hundred copies of the 
New Testament and some books of the Old Testa- 
ment had been put into circulation, although it was 
still impracticable to distribute the Sacred Volume 
within the domains of the Emperor of China." At 
that time and for many years later all these books 
had to be given away. It was impossible to sell them. 

Later translators: The field of Bible translation in 
Schereschewsky. China is a fascinating one. Its ex- 
tent may be realized by perusing a pamphlet of 
thirty-nine pages published by the American Bible 
Society in 191 6. The entire pamphlet is simply a 
list of the various translations and revisions made up 
to that time. It is possible to mention but a few of 
the many men and women who have toiled to give 
the Word of God to the Chinese. Among the most 
picturesque characters is Bishop Schereschewsky 
(Pronounced Sker-es-kus'ky) of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church. He was a Russian Jew, born in 1831. 
He was converted in Holland through reading the 
New Testament. He received his theological educa- 
tion in America, whence he was sent to China as a 
missionary of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 
Bishop Schereschewsky became one of the great 
translators. He had part in the revision of the Man- 
darin Bible and made a translation of the entire 
Bible into the Wenli or Classical Chinese. During 
many years of his life he was bedridden and paralyzed, 
having only partial use of one hand, but he com- 
pleted his task. Among other translators are Gutz- 
laff, who made the version used by the leaders of the 
Tai Ping rebellion, Rev. Wm. Dean, W. A. P. Mar- 



ii6 The Bible and Missions 

tin. Rev. Griffith John, Rev. C. W. Mateer, and 
Rev. Chauncey Goodrich. 

A Japanese Bible The Bible played a great part in the 
made in China, opening of Japan to the gospel. 
Here again Providential preparation is seen. Dr. 
Karl Friedrich August Giitzlaff was another of the 
linguistic giants whom God had endowed and 
brought into the world to make the Bible known 
outside the bounds of Christendom. Dr. GiitzlafF 
had been sent to the Far East in 1828 by the Nether- 
lands Missionary Society. On his way to his field in 
China he was detained in Siam and improved his 
time by translating the Bible into Siamese. He 
reached China in 1831, the very year in which a 
Japanese junk was storm driven on the Pacific 
Ocean. The boat, after being tossed about for months, 
was wrecked on the Oregon coast, the survivors were 
made slaves by the Indians, rescued by the Hudson 
Bay Company, and were sent across Canada to 
England. From London they were sent back to 
China, and after four years of wandering landed at 
Macao in December of 1835. GiitzlafF took them to 
his own home, and, not satisfied with having made a 
beginning in the languages of Siam and China, 
promptly began to learn Japanese from his guests. 
In two years he had translated the Gospel and Epis- 
tles of John into Japanese, and had them printed at 
Singapore. It may not be without interest to men- 
tion that this same Dr. Giitzlaff was the one whose 
pamphlet on Medical Missions made Livingstone 
decide to be a medical missionary, whose Chinese 
translation of the Bible was republished by the lead- 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 117 

ers of the Tai Ping rebellion, and who was the au- 
thor of sixty-one volumes in Chinese. 
Version of At about the same time that Dr. 

S. Wells Williams. GutzlafF was preparing his Japanese 
version of the Bible, another group of shipwrecked 
sailors had been returned by Americans. These may 
have been driven by the same storm that wrecked 
the other Japanese junk. They were rescued by some 
Christian men and sent to China, since the laws of 
Japan did not permit their return to their own coun- 
try. Dr. S. Wells Williams, one of the most remark- 
able men whom America has sent to the East, re- 
ceived and befriended them. Not content with his 
mastery of the Chinese language — an achievement 
quite sufficient for one man — he began to learn Jap- 
anese from these waifs, and made a translation of 
the Gospel of Matthew and the book of Genesis. 
While the Japanese of these sailors was probably 
none of the purest, Dr. Williams was able to get a 
sufficient grasp on the language so that he accom- 
panied Commodore Perry as interpreter when the 
American Navy succeeded in opening Japan to 
intercourse with the Western World. In 1837 he 
had tried to gain access to Japan, only to be driven 
away by the batteries in Yeddo Bay. 
The First Protes- It was not until 1 859 that the first 
tant missionaries. Protestant missionaries entered the 
newly opened Empire of Japan. One of their first 
tasks was to translate the Bible, since they were 
still strictly forbidden to do open or aggressive Chris- 
tian work. During these perilous times the early 
missionaries devoted themselves to language study 
and to translation. The five men who reached Japan 



Ii8 The Bible and Missions 

during the first year of Protestant missions were 
Rev. John Liggins and Rev., afterward Bishop, 
C. M. Williams of the Protestant Episcopal Church, 
Dr. J. C. Hepburn of the Presbyterian Church, and 
Dr. S. R. Brown and Rev. G. T. Verbeck of the 
Dutch Reformed. For nearly ten years these men 
practically had the field to themselves. All were 
mighty men of God. Quite unexpectedly to Mr. 
Liggins and Mr. Williams, who had been transferred 
from China, a demand sprang up for the Bible in 
Chinese translation. Since the Chinese and Japanese 
use the same characters (the Chinese) in their writing, 
the Japanese could understand the Chinese character, 
although reading it in Japanese words. This may be 
illustrated by the fact that the French and English 
both understand Arabic numerals though they give 
them different names. 

A Bible floating Some Chinese books had a big influ- 
on the water. ence in the introduction of the Jap- 
anese to Christianity. In 1855 a young nobleman 
named Murata Wasaka was in charge of the Western 
Coast near Nagasaki, to keep out all foreigners. 
He kept the harbor guarded by a cordon of boats. 
One day while on a trip of inspection he found a book 
floating on the water. The type and binding so in- 
terested him, that he picked it out of the water. He 
asked a Dutch interpreter about the book and was 
told that it was a New Testament in Dutch, but that 
there was a translation of it in Chinese. Wasaka 
sent a man to Shanghai to buy a copy, and began in 
secret to study its pages with his younger brother 
and two friends. 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 119 

Murataandhis When the first missionaries arrived 
brother question these young men were still engaged 
Verbeck. in the perilous study of the forbidden 

faith. In 1862 the younger brother, Ayabe, traveled 
to Nagasaki under pretense of studying medicine, 
but really to try to find some foreigner who could ex- 
plain passages which were hard to understand. One 
of his questions was whether Jesus was an English- 
man, a Dutchman, or a Spaniard. Here he formed 
the acquaintance of Guido Verbeck and warned him 
of a plot against his life. From time to time the two 
brothers, with elaborate precautions against discov- 
ery, sent a trusted servant named Motono with new 
lists of questions. At that time there were no rail- 
roads and the journey to Nagasaki took two days. 
Verbeck prepared a page of home helps for these 
young men every week. Finally the two brothers, 
with no witness except their trusted servant, were 
baptized, and Motono also, by Dr. Verbeck in the 
springtime of 1866. With great courage both broth- 
ers reported their act to their feudal lord. Neither 
of them suflFered persecution, though some of Wasa- 
ka's Christian books were burned by order of the 
Central Government. 

Translators and The Japanese Bible of today is the 
translations. work of a group of translators, the 

earliest and greatest of whom were Dr. S. R. Brown, 
Dr. Hepburn, Dr. Green, and Dr. Nathan Brown. 
This committee began its work in January, 1874 and 
worked for five years before the first edition was 
published in April, 1880. Dr. Hepburn, one of the 
most famous of these men, was the maker of the 
first English-Japanese dictionary. When he went to 



I20 The Bible and Missions 

Japan there were no helps in the study of the lan- 
guage. He had to depend on writing down the sounds 
of words on tablets as he learned them. He studied 
with such good purpose that in eight years he was 
able to publish a superb specimen of lexicography, 
the English-Japanese dictionary, on which all sub- 
sequent dictionaries are based. The completed ver- 
sion of the New Testament was published by the 
Committee in 1880, and that of the entire Bible in 
1888. Separate Gospels and portions were put into 
circulation as soon as they were completed; the Gos- 
pel of Mark in 1872 and that of Matthew a year 
later. 

The Revision The rapid progress of the Japanese 
Committee and language towards standardization, the 
its work. introduction of new terms and the 

more intimate acquaintance with the language on the 
part of the missionaries made a revised version seem 
desirable. A Committee composed of Japanese and 
missionary members was chosen in 1910. Two of its 
members. Dr. Greene and Mr. Matsuyama, had been 
members of the original Committee; the others, both 
foreign and Japanese, were all chosen because of 
their expert knowledge of one or more phases of the 
work. This revision 'is in a modified classical style 
with archaic forms omntted and the language brought 
nearer to modern speech,' says Dr. C. K. Harring- 
ton, one of the translators. Since the difference be- 
tween the spoken and the written language is im- 
measurably greater than is the case in any modern 
Western language, all will echo Dr. Harrington's 
hope that 'some day there may be a translation into 
the real vernacular, the colloquial.' 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 121 

The Bible finds a The Christians of Korea are pre- 
prepared path. eminently Bible Christians. The Kore- 
ans seem to have had a wonderful preparation for 
the diffusion of the gospel. Owing to similarities in 
their life and customs with conditions pictured in 
the Scripture, it spoke to them from the first as a 
native and not a foreign book. The people of the 
Book said, 'Peace be with you' in their daily saluta- 
tions; so did the Koreans. Sacrifices and peace offer- 
ings were well known to Koreans; they Vent out to 
meet the bridegroom'; and ^two women grinding at 
the miir were no strange sight to them. They 
could pick up their beds and walk; they saw the fisher- 
men mending their nets and the winnowing fans on the 
threshing floor. They had feasts of the new moon, 
they wore long robes girt about with a fancy girdle. 
They put off their shoes when they stood on holy 
ground. They knew about demons and the demoniacs 
and the helplessness of the sorcerers to drive out the 
demons. They had visions and parables and dreams. 
When the Book came it found its way prepared. 
The Korean They had a wonderful aid, too, in 

Script. their system of writing their language. 

The Chinese and Japanese were lumbering along 
with written characters so complex and difficult as 
virtually to fence away the domain of literature from 
the common people. Four hundred and seventy- 
five years ago (J445 A.D.), Korea prepared a simple 
form of syllabic alphabet or phonetic writing so that, 
as Moffatt says, "The old and the poor, the toil- 
worn, the prisoner, the hidden wife and mother, the 
slave behind the mule, the butcher, the baker, the 
hat-mender, the water-carrier, the bean-curd ped- 



122 The Bible and Missions 

dler, the sorcerer, the witch-wife, the less than no 
man, all might read." King Sejong's simple alpha- 
bet, so simple that the art of reading might be learned 
in a few weeks, lay disused and despised for centuries 
by the Koreans. Chinese characters were used for 
their classical literature, while their own phonetic 
writing was called Un-Muriy "the dirty language.*' 
But when the Lord Jesus must needs go through 
Korea, he picked the despised alphabet from the 
dust, saying, 'This was made for my gospel.' The 
miraculously rapid circulation of the New Testa- 
ment was due in no small degree to the fact that it 
was printed in the native script. May it not be that 
this translation of the Bible into Korean will prove to 
be not only the means of preserving the Korean 
language, but also the model on which both Japan 
and China may m^odify their antiquated and compli- 
cated system of character writing? 
A Korean Bible The Bible entered Korea in advance 
made in of the missionary, partly because it 

Manchuria. ^yy^s easier to smuggle in a Bible than 

a missionary in the days when signposts along the 
road said: "If you meet a foreigner, kill him; he who 
has friendly relations with him is a traitor to his 
country/' These signposts stood as late as 1880. 
It was in 1865, twenty years before the coming of the 
missionaries, that the earliest known attempt was 
made to bring the Bible into Korea. Mr. Thomas, an 
agent of the National Bible Society of Scotland, 
came bringing Chinese Bibles from Chefoo in a 
Korean junk. He knew that since Korean scholars 
wrote their own language with the Chinese charac- 
ters they could read this Chinese Bible. A year 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 123 

later he was stranded in the ill-fated Sherman, and 
both he and the crew were killed by the Koreans. 
In 1875 ^^- John Ross and Rev. John Mclntyre of 
the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, work- 
ing in Manchuria, made the acquaintance of Koreans 
who had gone to Manchuria on business. They found 
out that the Koreans could understand the Chinese 
Bible, since they read their own language in Chinese 
characters, A scholarly Korean was engaged to make 
a translation from the Chinese into the Un-Mun^ the 
vernacular writing of Korea. In 1882 translations of 
the Gospels of St. Luke and St. John had been made 
and published. Work done by such an agent under 
such conditions was bound to prove imperfect; but 
it surely was under the direction of the Great 
Strategist that these two missionaries in Manchuria 
were led to adopt the Korean rather than the Chinese 
script for their first translation. 

Colporters Once printed, it looked hopeless to 

smuggle it into get the books introduced, since all 
Korea. foreign religious books were prohib- 

ited in the Hermit Kingdom. It was finally decided 
to make the Scriptures up into bundles, unbound, and 
send them in on the backs of the coolies who carried 
great bundles of old official papers bought up an- 
nually in Manchuria by Korean merchants. The 
plan succeeded. In a short time there was a little 
company of disciples among the merchants of 
Weiju in the northern end of the country. Three of 
these early disciples, at great personal risk, became 
colporters. One of them, Saw Sang Yun, succeeded 
in getting to Seoul from Mukden with a few copies 



124 The Bible and Missions 

of the Scripture. He was in Seoul when the Ameri- 
can missionaries came in 1885. 

Another transia- Meanwhile, another attempt to enter 
tion enters from Korea with a Korean Bible had been 
the East. made in Japan. Rev. Henry Loomis, 

agent of the American Bible Society in Yokohama, 
met a Korean and engaged him to translate the Gos- 
pel of Mark into Korean. When the pioneer mission- 
aries. Dr. H. G. Underwood, Dr. H. G. Appenzeller, 
and Dr. W. B. Scranton, passed through Japan in 
1885, a few copies of this Gospel of Mark were given 
to them. It was the Ross translation, however, 
which was the real forerunner of missions. Between 
1883 and 1886 no less than 15,690 copies of this 
translation had been circulated. Saw Sang Yun had 
led the first Korean congregation to Christ. To this 
day the Christian church in Weiju, where no mis- 
sionary is resident, numbers fifteen hundred believers. 
Authorized Version However valuable these first attempts 
of Korean Bible, at translation, the American mis- 
sionaries realized that another and better transla- 
tion must be made. A Board of Translators was 
formed in 1887. An authorized version of the New 
Testament was completed and published in 1906, six 
years after a tentative version had been put in circu- 
lation. It was not until 1910 that the translation of 
all the books of the Old Testament was completed. 
The Bible among Some of the great adventures in Bible 
the islanders. translation belong to the little peo- 
ples. The Gilbert Islanders, for example, clinging to 
their low-lying coral reefs, had the lifetime of a 
Christian hero given in their behalf, in the endeavor 
to give them the Bible, Hiram Bingham, Jr., son 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 125 

of that Hiram Bingham who brought the Gospel 
to the Hawaiian Islanders, lived on the Gilbert 
Islands, reduced the language to writing, made a 
grammar and dictionary, and after years of toil 
translated the Bible. His manuscript, the fruit of 
a lifetime, was lost at sea on its way to America to 
be published. Although his health was shattered so 
that he could no longer continue to live in the Gil- 
bert Islands, Mr. Bingham, while living in Hawaii, 
patiently renewed his labors to retranslate the whole. 
On all the Pacific Islands there are similar stories 
of peoples sunk in degradation, and of the coming 
of the missionaries bringing the Book. It was in 
Aneityum, one of the islands of the New Hebrides, 
that John Geddie of Nova Scotia began in 1848 to 
learn the language of the fierce savages who inhabited 
the island. He reduced their language to writing, 
prepared school books, taught the people to read, 
translated the Bible for them. When he died, worn 
out after twenty- four years of service, a bronze 
tablet was placed in his memory in a church seating 
one thousand worshippers : 

"When he landed in 1848, there were no Christians here; 
When he left in 1872, there were no heathen." 

The people were so overjoyed at the thought of hav- 
ing the Bible in their own tongue that they contributed 
$5,000 for printing it. These same islanders gave the 
entire product of their cocoanut trees for six months 
to roof two churches, and sent out and paid more than 
fifty of their own members who went carrying their 
Bible as missionaries to heathen islands. 
Henry Nott of One of the master translators of the 
Tahiti. South Sea Islands was Henry Nott 



126 The Bible and Missions 

of Tahiti. He gave twenty years of his life, amid 
circumstances full of horror and suffering, to the 
study of the language. He tamed it, cleared out its 
dense thickets of savage thought, discovered its 
hidden symmetries and beauties, and after he felt 
himself master gave another twenty years of a great 
life to the translation of the Scriptures. 
John Williams of When John Williams later began his 
Raratonga. cruises of Christianization, he trans- 

lated the New Testament into Raratongan, a closely 
allied dialect. He spent four years in England per- 
fecting his translation and seeing it through the press. 
When he returned to Raratonga with his big boxes 
of books, — five thousand of them, — the people 
crowded around to secure the priceless treasures. 
"Every one was eager to buy a copy," John Wil- 
liams says, "One man, as he secured his, hugged the 
book in ecstasy; another and another kissed it; others 
held them up and waved them in the air. Some sprang 
away like a dart, and did not stop till they entered 
their own dwellings, and exhibited their treasures to 
their wives and children, while others jumped and 
capered about like persons half frantic with joy." 
John G. Paton John G. Paton, translator of the New 
of Aniwa. Testament into Aniwan, one of the 

many languages of the New Hebrides, tells of the 
joy which the first book gave to the Chief Namekei; 
"Is it done? Can it speak?" asked Namekei ex- 
citedly. "Make it speak to me! Let me hear it 
speak." When part of the book was read to him, 
he shouted in an ecstasy of joy, "It does speak! It 
speaks my own language, too! Oh, give it to me!" 
He grasped it hurriedly, opened and then closed it 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 127 

with a look of disappointment, and said, "I can not 
make it speak! It will never speak to me." But it 
did, for the old Chief with painful persistence learned 
to read, and as children and strangers gathered round 
him he would produce his prized book and say, 
"Come, I will let you hear how the book speaks our 
own Aniwan words." 

The Bible in Sav- Time would fail to tell of two broth- 
age Island and ers, W. G. Lawes and F. E. Lawes, 
New Guinea. ^^q gave thirty-six years of their 
lives to clear a path for the Book into the minds 
of the men of Savage Island; or of the seven years 
given by this same W. G. Lawes to complete and re- 
vise the New Testament translated by James Chal- 
mers into the speech of one of the tribes of New 
Guinea, for men of the Stone Age. 
Searching for a The translator of the New Testa- 
name for God. ment into Toaripi, one of the lan- 
guages spoken in Southern New Guinea, Rev. E. Pryce 
Jones, tells of the difficulty he had to find a word for 
God that would convey the Christian idea to people 
still in the stage of totem worship. He could find the 
names of the different spirits who made the pig, the 
crocodile, or the crab, but all his searching failed to 
find any higher idea. One day when he was working 
with a native and asking him questions the man said, 

"Ualare knows that." 

"Who is Ualare?" asked the missionary quickly, 
hoping that perhaps he was at last on the trail. 

"Ualare is the spirit who made the mountains, and 
out of whom the world came," said the man. 
Today the Papuan reads in his New Testament, 
"Ualare so loved the world that he gave his only 



128 The Bible and Missions 

begotten Son/* and slowly builds up his idea of a 
great Father God. 

Christianity comes The island of Madagascar, on the other 
to Madagascar, side of the world from these small, 
smiling lands circled about with silver seas, has been 
the scene of one of the greatest victories of the Bible 
translator. Madagascar is next to New Guinea the 
largest island in the world. Between four and five 
million people live on this rich island. They built 
comfortable homes, were decently clad, often in 
garments made of the silk they spun and wove so 
cunningly. They spun cotton, too, and hemp, and 
knew how to work iron so as to make their spears 
and spades. Some of their towns were surrounded 
by walls and moats. Their government was an ab- 
solute despotism. The slave trade cursed them. 
Although having considerable beginnings of civili- 
zation, they had no written language and their 
moral condition was exceedingly low. In 1818 the 
London Missionary Society sent two missionaries 
and their families. In six weeks all except one. Rev. 
David Jones, were dead. He escaped to Mauritius, 
tortured with fever. In 1820 he re-entered the coun- 
try; other missionaries joined him, and the task of 
hewing out a vocabulary and grammar of the lan- 
guage began. Schools were opened. King Radama 
sent ten picked youths to England to be educated. 
The schools in Madagascar grew mightily. In 1828 
the Gospel of Luke was published. In that same year 
the wise king died and a reign of terror ensued, set 
up by rival claimants to the throne. All schools were 
closed, so that the missionaries were shut up to the 
one work of Bible translation. The printing press had 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 129 

already been set up by the missionaries. By 1830 
five thousand copies of the complete New Testament 
were printed. Then came edicts allowing the reopen- 
ing of the schools, and the very next year the first 
converts were baptized and the Church began to 
grow in apostolic fashion. 

Ranavaiona Then began the opposition which 

begins the great later was to develop into ruthless 
persecution. persecution. Ranavaiona, the Queen, 

became the bitter enemy of the new religion. On 
March first, 1835, ^ decree went forth that all who 
met for prayer and worship must confess it within 
a month. In swift succession came decrees ordering 
the giving up and burning of all copies of the Scrip- 
tures. The missionaries were then driven out and the 
full fury of the storm broke on the infant church. 
The missionaries, before going, buried their boxes 
of Bibles, Testaments, and The Pilgrim ' s Progress ^ to 
await their return and the dawn of better days. 
Well that they did not dream that twenty-six years 
were to pass before the mission stations could again 
be opened. During that time no devilish refinement 
of torture was missing in the sufferings meted out 
to the Malagasy Christians. The only legacy which 
the missionaries had been able to leave to their 
sorely tried converts was the books which they had 
printed. Since these books were the only ones in the 
language, they had been read without distraction 
by all classes of the people. On the New Testament 
and The Pilgrim's Progress^ the Christians were to 
feed their souls during the black years of persecution 
that followed. 



130 



The Bible and Missions 



Another eleventh There are no more glorious annals in 
chapter of the history of Christianity than those 

Hebrews. of Madagascar. All the Bibles which 

could be found were burned, but copies were secreted 
in hollow trees, in caves, in the rafters of houses. 
Rough copies were made by hand and passed secretly 
from disciple to disciple. When the years of agony 
were over, some of these precious tear-stained, blood- 
stained copies, worn thin from much handling, mend- 
ed again and again, were recovered, and may now be 
seen in the archives of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society. Those who refused to worship the idols and 
boldly confessed their belief in Christ were sold as 
slaves, forced to toil in chains, driven out into the 
forests, thrown over cliffs into the sea, suspended 
head downward in the rice pits and boiling water 
poured over them, burned alive, dismembered. 
Nobles saw their families scattered and reduced to 
slavery, their estates confiscated, themselves reduced 
to the ranks of the common soldiers and put to hard 
labor. This went on for year after year, yet still 
the faith grew and spread, irresistible, unquenchable. 
End of Reign When the reign of terror had ended 
of Terror. and the first consignment of Bibles, 

long stored in Mauritius in anticipation of the day of 
the gospel's re-entrance, arrived at the capital, so 
vast a crowd pressed forward to buy the books that 
the doors of the storehouse had to be closed, a line 
formed, and the Bibles passed out through the win- 
dow to the waiting purchasers. 

The Book that What shall we say of a Book that can 
sets men free. beget such heroism ? Does it need 
other credentials that it is God's best gift to Man.^* 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 131 

When the missionaries had been driven out, there 
were about fifteen hundred Christians. When they 
were allowed to return, there were seven thousand. 
During the twenty-six years ten thousand people had 
been sentenced to death or slavery or exile. What was 
the power which had sustained these new believers, 
fresh from heathen and debasing customs? The Book 
whose mere introduction could arouse such devotion 
may well be called the Charter of Man's Freedom. 
The Bible In 1 868, when Queen Ranava'lona II. 

enthroned. was crowned, the royal seat was 

erected under a canopy on each side of which was 
emblazoned a quotation from the Bible: "Glory to 
God"; "Good will among men"; "On earth Peace"; 
"God be with us." In front of the queen were two 
tables, on one of them the crown of Madagascar, on 
the other, the Bible. 

The Bible The Dark Continent has been the 

in Africa. scene of many triumphs of the trans- 

lator. Africa is the true Tower of Babel. Here are 
843 varieties of human speech, almost all of them to 
be reduced to written form, most of them spoken 
by savage tribes living under conditions almost in- 
supportable by white men. Yet into this darkness 
men have gone, and there they have lived and worked 
to bring the Book of God to the people. The mis- 
sionaries have made dictionaries and grammars and 
school books and translated the Bible into one hun- 
dred different languages; but there remain 443 dis- 
tinct languages and 300 dialects not yet reduced to 
writing. If Africa is transferred from a liability into 
an asset, it will be because the Africans receive the 
Christian Bible. 



132 The Bible and Missions 

Pilkington of It will be impossible to mention more 
Uganda. than one or two of these translators. 

George Lawrence Pilkington of Uganda is one of the 
most gifted in any land. Such was his facility in the 
acquisition of language that he learned the language 
on his way up from Zanzibar so that he was able to 
converse as soon as he reached his field. Within five 
years after reaching Uganda, Pilkington carried back 
to his home in Ireland the manuscript of the entire 
New Testament and a large part of the Old for final 
revision and printing. Although so rapid, his work 
was exceedingly careful and scholarly. 
Eliot's Bible for The story of the Bible among the 
the Indians. North American Indians must not 

be passed over. The first American translation of 
the Bible was that made by John Eliot in the lan- 
guage of the Mohican^ of New England. It was only 
fifty years after the publication of the King James 
Version of the English Bible that John Eliot^s trans- 
lation of the New Testament was printed in 1661, 
and two years later that of the Old Testament. The 
Indian tribes for whom the Book was translated have 
long since vanished, their very language is forgotten 
so that no one living can read one of the cherished 
copies of the beautifully printed Bible; but Eliot's 
work remains, as does his word inscribed at the end of 
his Indian Grammar, ^'Prayer and pains, through 
faith in Jesus Christ, will do anything." Translations 
of portions of the Bible were early made into the 
language of the Delawares, the Mohawks, the Sene- 
cas, and the Chippewas. 

"The White Man's The Story of the search for the Bible 
Book of Heaven." on the part of the Nez-Perces Indians 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 133 

of Idaho is one of the most stirring in the annals of 
missions. In their far fastnesses the tribe had 
heard about a Book of Heaven through which the 
white man became wise and strong. In a great 
council the tribe set apart four chiefs to go to the 
distant white man's country and bring back the Book. 
It was in 1831 that these four men made their way- 
over the desolate mountains, the vast prairies, the 
swift rivers, and came to St. Louis, a rough, roy- 
stering frontier town, asking, 

"Where is the white man's Book of Heaven?" 
They met ridicule and indifference until Gen- 
eral Clark learned of their errand and befriend- 
ed them. Two of the Indians fell ill and died. 
Before the others started on their long homeward 
journey a big dinner was given in their honor, at 
which the officers at the fort and the leading citi- 
zens were present. 

The Oregon Although the Indians in far-away 

Trail. Idaho who waited month after month 

for the return of their emissaries with the Book 
waited in vain, yet this appeal did reach the hearts 
of the white people. As a result the first Protestant 
Mission west of the Rocky Mountains was es- 
tablished, Jason Lee of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church becoming the pioneer. Marcus Whitman and 
Henry H. Spalding, with their brides, began a honey- 
moon journey lasting seven months to the far North 
West. Greater issues, too, hung upon their mission 
than the Indian Chiefs who made the perilous 
journey could dream. On the fact that these Ameri- 
can missionaries with wagons, household goods, and 
families had actually crossed the Rocky Mountains 



134 The Bible and Missions 

depended very largely America's claim to the Oregon 
Country. After long, long delays the Nez-Perces 
actually got "The Book that makes the trail plain," 
printed in their own language by the American Bible 
Society in 1871. 

The Dakota The greatest Indian translation is 

Bible. that into the language of the Sioux 

of the Plains, the Dakotas. Two men. Rev. Thomas 
E. Williamson and Dr. Stephen Riggs, gave forty 
years of life to this task. Their joint work was re- 
vised by Dr. Williamson's son, the Rev, John P. 
Williamson. Dr. Riggs's autobiography, Mary and 
/, or Forty Years among the Sioux ^ is a moving and 
glorious record. 

The Navajo The most rcccnt translation of the 

Bible. Bible into an Indian tongue is the 

Nevajo. This numerous tribe living in Arizona and 
New Mexico has waited all these years for the white 
people to give them the Book. Three men, Rev. 
L. P. Brink, Rev. F. G. Mitchell, and Rev. John 
Butler, have collaborated in the work of transla- 
tion. 

An Indian invents The Cherokee Scriptures are notable 
an alphabet. not SO much because of the transla- 

tion as because they are printed in an alphabet in- 
vented by a Cherokee Indian, a half-breed, whose 
Indian name was Sequoya. Although illiterate him- 
self, he realized that the power of the white people 
was bound up in their books. He studied to see if he 
could supply the need of his own people. He made 
symbols on birch bark, and in some way got the idea 
of making symbols represent the sounds of the 
Cherokee language. After two years' work he in- 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 135 

vented an alphabet consisting of eighty-four letters. 
This alphabet was adopted by the legislature of the 
Cherokee Nation, and a newspaper was published 
in it. The missionaries adopted it for the transla- 
tion of the Bible, as by means of this alphabet it was 
possible to represent the sounds of the Cherokee 
language more perfectly than by the English alpha- 
bet. In 1 83 1 the American Bible Society began the 
printing of the Cherokee New Testament and a 
large part of the Old Testament. The State of Okla- 
homa has recently presented to the Government a 
statue of Sequoya to be placed in the Capitol at 
Washington. 

The Indian's Twenty-third Psalm 

The Indian language is not easily subject to translation and in 
their intercourse with one another the various tribes use a sign 
language, more or less universal, which they have evolved. The 
following is a translation of the twenty-third Psalm which can 
easily be interpreted by this sign language: 

The Great Father above is a Shepherd Chief. I am His, and 
with Him I want not. 

He throws out to me a rope, and the name of the rope is Love, 
and He draws me, and He draws me, and He draws me to where 
the grass is green and the water not dangerous, and I eat and lie 
down satisfied. 

Sometimes my heart is very weak and falls down, but He lifts 
it up again and draws me into a good road. His name is Wonder- 
ful. 

Some time, it may be very soon, it may be longer, it may be 
a long, long time. He will draw rne into a place between moun- 
tains. It is dark there, but I'll draw back not. I'll be afraid not, 
for it is in there between these mountains that the Shepherd 
Chief will meet me, and the hunger I have felt in my heart all 
through this life will be satisfied. Sometimes He makes the love 
rope into a whip, but afterwards He gives me a staflf" to lean on. 



136 The Bible and Missions 

He spreads a table before me with all kinds of food. He puts 
His hands upon my head, u.nd all the "tired" is gone. My cup He 
fills till it runs over. 

What I tell you is '.rue, I lie not. These roads that are "away 
ahead" will stay with me through this life, and afterward I will 
go to live in the "Big Tepee" and sit down with the Shepherd 
Chief forever, 

Arabic, sacTf^d The Bible has been made accessible 
language of through translation to Moslem pop- 

Moslems, ulations numbering acOjOOO^ooo. All 

of these revere one sacred language, the Arabic, in 
which the Koran was written by verbal inspiration, 
as they believe. So great is their reverence for the 
vury word of Scripture that they discourage any 
translation of the Koran, which is read in its original 
Arabic wherever there is a Mosque, and forms the 
basis of education wherever there is a Moslem school. 
A well-known Moslem lawyer in Lahore, India, in 
addressing his coreligionists said recently, "The rea- 
son why Christians succeed is because wherever 
they go they have the Bible and say their prayers in 
their mother tongue; whereas we have wrapped up 
our religion in an Arabic dress. We ought to give the 
people the Koran in their own tongue." His only 
answer was, "Thou art an unbeliever thyself, to say 
such things." 

Translation of The importance of an Arabic version 
Arabic Bible. of the Bible becomes apparent when 
we consider the fanatical devotion to Arabic through- 
out the whole Moslem world scattered over Asia and 
Africa. This need was met by a wonderful transla- 
tion into Classical Arabic to which Rev. Cornelius 
VanDyke and Rev. Eli Smith gave sixteen years of 
life. Their translation ranks among the very greatest 



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^. '^^ ^ ^ -* !^5i fl >i :i t^ .^.^, 

k -^ ^ ^""^ <f ^ -"^ ^^ ^^- ^ -^ 

4 if '^ A y^ ^ r-. t k 4 ^ 

^^ ^^ A il^ /^ [*- -# -^ 4^ ^t ^ 

-=^ ^ <^ ii] ;^ i 4- :t -fr t ^ 

1^. i ^ ^'^- ^^ ^ z^ t "^ -- ir 

^> t^ li] tri P«^ m ^4- *li ^ i^ ^ 

/^ It 41 <>;:?: -^ :t fi >^ ^^ ^^ 

9^ i|> ^^^ ^t ^ ^^- ^k th ^ ir 

^K ^^ >i^ -i-. .^^-j <^ -^ # jl 1^ 



5 ''^ -^'fN ^^V "^ -^ -^^ 

<. ^ #, f X ^ ^ ^ A^ ^" 

^ -f^ -^ ^ -^ ^ 4^ ;4 .^ 

^f ^ -f 4 5 ^ ^f 

^ — ?^ -^2. ,K1. ^- :5^ 

% -k ^'^ V^ ti y%h ^ 

m J; :K 4 ;?. '^ n 

^'^ # ft A -^ 

»^ S, <4 ^^T ^ 

SURPRISIXCx AND SIGXIFICAXT LETTER FR0M_A1ILI- 
TARY GOVERNOR OF SZECHUAX 

W (Translation.) '"The work of your Society (Am. Bible) deserves to be en- 
couraged and supported. It is the Bible that has made America great. From 
it your people have derived their love of goodness, their -w-isdom and passion tor 
liberty. ***\Vill you thank your supporters at home for this benevolent work and 
ask them not to be weary in well doing. ***\Ve love and trust America." 



Every Man in His Own Tongue 137 

in its felicity and strength; its pure Arabic style 
makes it a delight to the reader of Arabic litera- 
ture. Not content with this version in high Arabic, 
the British and Foreign Bible Society has made trans- 
lations into the colloquial Arabic spoken in the 
various countries of the Near East. 
Other Moslem The Moslem World devoted to a 
Versions. Book must be won by a greater Book. 

To the winning of peoples who profess this most 
powerful religion now opposing Christianity the no- 
ble army of translators has contributed much. 
*" The Turkish Bible of SchaufHer was the work of 
fourteen years. These two chief versions, the Arabic 
and the Turkish, are supplemented by ten others in 
the chief languages of the Levant, and in thirty 
dialects. Furthermore, the Turkish Bible is printed 
also in the Arabic, the Armenian, or the Greek char- 
acters for those who read Turkish in those alphabets. 
A superb The translation of the Bible has 

achievement. been perhaps the most fruitful ac- 

complishment of the nineteenth century. Until the 
Scriptures were made accessible to the great bulk of 
mankind in their mother tongue, there could be no 
wide expansion of Christianity. While there are mul- 
titudes belonging to the smaller and more scattered 
peoples who are still without a Bible, the great 
racial and national divisions have all had the Scrip- 
tures translated into their own language. Whil^ 
other faiths have remained more or less quiescent, 
permitting their sacred books, if translated at all, 
to be translated by others for the purposes of com- 
parative study of religion, Christians have boldly, 
persistently, with superb courage and devotion. 



138 The Bible and Missions 

laid down life itself in the struggle to put the Bible 
into the speech of every tongue and tribe and nation. 
The first campaign is won. 

Strategy of Bible Into all these lands the Bible has 
translation. found entrance through the labor of 

the translators. As battles are won not solely or even 
chiefly by the armies who struggle with shot and 
shell in the front line, but by the makers of muni- 
tions and by the strategists who, far back, are di- 
recting the campaign, so Christianity's World 
Campaign depends upon these missionaries who are 
translating the Bible into living languages. Wher- 
ever it goes the Book carries its credentials. It speaks 
one message to the one heart of mankind. As a 
Greek Christian phrased it in his letter to the Bible 
House, in broken English but no doubtful meaning, 
"The gabs are many, but the ghost is one.'* 



OUTLINE OF CHAPTER IV. 



aim: To show how the work of the National Bible Societies 
has powerfully furthered the missionary movement by fi- 
nancing translations, and publishing and distributing Bibles. 

I. HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE NATIONAL BIBLE SOCIETIES. 

I. T^he British and Foreign Bible Society. 

a. Circumstances surrounding its organization. 

b. Its charter, activities, rapid development. 

1. Continental Bible Societies. 

a. Fostered by British and Foreign Bible Society. 

b. Some short-lived. 

c. Most of them doing little missionary translation, 

3. 'The National Bible Society oj Scotland., 

4. 'The American Bible Society, 

a. Its organization. 

b. Distinguished support. 

c. Bible publication endorsed by Congress. 

II. WORK OF THE NATIONAL BIBLE SOCIETIES. 

1. Common principles and policies. 

2. Selling Bibles or giving them. 

3. Promoting and financing of Bible translations and 
publications. 

4. Enormous and continuous sale of the Bible. 

5. Comparison of Bible sales with others. 

III. THE AGENT OF THE BIBLE SOCIETIES 

I. The Colporter ubiquitous. 

1. The Colporter from every race. 

3. The Colporter of true heroic stuff. 



140 The Bible and Missions 

IV. THE FRUITS OF BIBLE DISTRIBUTION. 

1. In a Navaho hogan. 

2. In Japanese prisons. 

3. In a Korean prison. 

4. In a Chinese philanthropist. 

5. In an Indmn fakir. 

V. MINISTRY OF THE BIBLE SOCIETIES TO THE SOLDIERS AND 
SAILORS. 

1. Enormous number distributed; wide-spread contribu- 
tions to the fund; approval of military leaders, apprecia- 
tion of the boys. 

2. The Pocket Testament League, its story. 

3. Fruit of Bible work among soldiers. 

VI. DUTIES TOWARD THE BIBLE SOCIETIES. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE TRAVELS OF THE BOOK 

"It is the great destiny of England and America to carry the Bible to the 
earth's remotest bounds." Hon. Joseph H. Choate, 



The Rise of the In chapter three we have studied the 
Bible Societies. ^^ox\i of Bible translators in aid of the 
worldwide diffusion of the Christian message. In 
chapter four we shall consider the history and ac- 
tivities of the great organizations through which the 
distribution of the manifold translations has been 
made possible. In reality these two agencies, the 
translators and the Bible Societies, are contempo- 
rary with the rise and development of a third agency, 
the Mission Boards and Societies. It seemed expe- 
dient in the interests of clearness to consider them 
separately. 

Bibles expensive In the Opening years of the nineteenth 
and scarce in 1800. century Bibles were comparatively 
few and very expensive. Outside America and the 
Protestant nations of Europe they were almost un- 
obtainable by the laity. Even in Scotland among 
the Highlanders, most of whom at that time under- 
stood no language but the Gaelic, the scarcity of the 
Scriptures was extreme. Not only were the books 
very few and hard to obtain, but the price, twenty- 
five shillings ($6.25), put them beyond the reach of 
any except the wealthy. In Ireland, with a popula- 
tion of five and a quarter millions, there were very 
few places outside the capital where a Bible could 
be purchased at any price. In the Island of Jersey 



142 The Bible and Missions 

old, second-hand family Bibles sold for £4. In the 
United States an equal destitution existed in the 
supply of Bibles both among the older settlers and 
among the pioneers on the frontiers, as was proved by 
the extensive investigations made by Samuel J. 
Mills in two journeys taken by him in 18 12 and 18 13. 
Education and in- The invention of printing had made 
vention democra- possible a Very great extension in the 
tize the Scriptures, circulation of the Scriptures, but the 
full effects of this miracle-working invention waited 
on two things; the diffusion of popular education and 
the perfecting of mechanical processes by which 
the cost of printing was greatly reduced. We do not 
often consider at how comparatively recent a day 
the public school system democratized the ability 
to read, and the power press and other inventions 
put books within the means of the great mass of men. 
What Mary Jones It was on March 7, 1 804, that the 
helped to start. oldest of the National Bible Societies, 
the British and Foreign Bible Society, was founded 
at the London Tavern in the presence of about three 
hundred people. An incident that had been influen- 
tial in bringing about its founding was the search 
of a little Welsh girl for a Bible. The Rev. Thomas 
Charles of Bala had told her story at a meeting of 
the Committee of the Religious Tract Society one 
cold December morning in 1 802. It seemed that there 
lived in a valley under Cader Idris, in the parish of 
Llanfihangel, a young Welsh girl named Mary Jones. 
She dearly loved the Bible, but the only chance she 
had to read it was by walking two miles to the house 
of a relative. She had formed a great resolution to 
save enough money to buy a Bible of her own. For 



The Travels of the Book 143 

years she had been hoarding up her chance pennies 
until when she was sixteen years old she found she 
had the price of a Bible in her hands. 
Mary gets her She Started out happily to walk the 
Bible. twenty-eight miles to the only place 

she knew where Bibles were sold. Her way lay along 
difficult and lonely paths through the mountains from 
Llanfihangel to Bala. When she reached Bala, tired 
and hungry, but happy in the accomplishment of her 
long-cherished purpose, she found that Mr. Charles, 
who was in charge of the depository, had sold the 
last copy he had. Strangely stirred by the child's 
tears and the revelation of her spiritual hunger, Mr. 
Charles gave her the only copy he had, one which had 
been laid aside on order of one of his friends. Fatigue 
and hunger were forgotten, as, tightly holding the 
Book in her hands, Mary Jones hastened to walk the 
long miles between her and home. 
Why not for When Mr. Charles had finished his 

the World? Story with an appeal for the publica- 

tion of a new edition of the Welsh Bible, Rev. Joseph 
Hughes, minister of the Baptist congregation at 
Battersea and Secretary of the Committee, said in 
words that have become historic, 

"Surely a society might be formed for the purpose. But if 
for Wales, why not for the Kingdom.? Why not for the world?" 

The British and The proposition took fire. Week by 
Foreign Bible week it was discussed in churches and 
Society organized, newspapers. Mr. Hughes wrote an 
essay with the sort of ponderous title so dearly be- 
loved in those days, 'The Excellency of the Holy Scrip- 
tures; an Argument for their more general Dispersion, 
In this widely circulated pamphlet Mr. Hughes 



144 The Bible and Missions 

appealed to the public to assist in founding "the first 
institution that ever emanated from one nation for 
the good of all." Other meetings were held in the 
hospitable counting house of Mr. Joseph Hardcastle 
at Old Swan Stairs, in which the proposition was 
debated again and again, and a code of regulations 
gradually took shape which later became the Con- 
stitution of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 
The name was the happy suggestion of Joseph 
Hughes. 

Difficulties and There were, of course, much opposi- 
obstacles. tion and many obstacles. Old General 

Conservatism, backed by his doughty lieutenants. 
Indifference and Sectarianism, did all he could to 
put down such an unprecedented enterprise. Added 
to the usual opposition which any new project must 
overcome, there were the formidable obstacles which 
the condition of the times presented. England was 
fighting for her life with Napoleon, who was confi- 
dently waiting for his 'six hours* mastery of the 
channel. Yet in such a time the Society was born. 

Stormy times no Troublous times have no terrors for 
bar to missions, the missionary enterprise. Like a 
stormy petrel it rides the waves. When Europe was 
convulsed with the French Revolution, William 
Carey launched the modern enterprise of foreign 
missions. The first American Societies were founded 
during the period of the war of 1812; the Women's 
Boards of Foreign Missions, during, and immediately 
after, the Civil War of 1861. During the last great 
war missionary societies have found a new response 
to their cause in many countries. 



The Travels of the Book 145 

Charter of the The catholicity of the Constitution 
British and Foreign of the British and Foreign Bible So- 
Bibie Society. ciety is the more remarkable in that 
it was made during a period of bitter sectarian con- 
flicts between Churchmen and Nonconformists. 
Christians of all communions united in its formation. 
The Constitution then adopted is virtually that of 
the present day. The Society was to limit its work 
to the printing and circulation of the Bible without 
note or comment. It was not to supplant, but to 
supplement, agencies already in the field, such as the 
Church Missionary Society, the Sunday School 
Union, the Religious Tract Society. The servant of 
all, it was to be the rival of none. 

Rapid extension The expansion of the new Society 
of the Society. was rapid. Challenged by the vio- 
lence and atheism set free during the throes of the 
French Revolution, the hearts of Christian men 
turned, even as they are turning today, with pas- 
sionate eagerness to a fresh study of the Bible. With- 
in twelve years the operations of the Society had ex- 
tended toGreenland andCanada,toAustraliaandthe 
South Seas, to India and China and the Malay Archi- 
pelago, to the backwoods of America, the planta- 
tions of the West Indies, to Brazil and Chili. These 
foreign grants came at that very moment when the 
first faint tappings of the translators were heard from 
the other side of Christianity's world tunnel. With- 
out the timely grants of the British and Foreign 
Bible Society the first Bibles of Carey and Marsh- 
man, of Morrison and Giitzlaff and Moffat could 
with difficulty have been published. 



146 The Bible and Missions 

The Welsh get In the homeland the Welsh got their 
their Bible. Bibles. Ten thousand copies of the 

New Testament were brought to Bala in 1806. When 
the people knew that the cart containing the books 
was on the road they went out to meet it and drew it 
into town with songs and rejoicings, as did the Is- 
raelites the Ark. Every copy was eagerly bought. 
Late in the summer twilight young heads bent above 
the Book, by the glimmer of rushlight aged faces in 
many a little cottage pored over the precious pages, 
and laborers carried the Book to the fields with them 
in the early morning. Mary Jones's Bible, her name 
written on the fly leaf in her own handwriting, is one 
of the treasures of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society. Bibles were circulated by the thousand in 
the industrial towns like Bristol and Manchester and 
among the prisoners in the festering jails and prisons. 
From the first the policy of selling rather than giving 
Bibles was adopted. 

Bible Schools in In the wild highlands of Scotland, a 
the Scotch land then almost as little known as 

highlands. Tasmania, there lived 300,000 High- 

landers who spoke no language but Gaelic. An edi- 
tion of Gaelic Bibles was immediately put on the 
press for them, and in 1807 Gselic Testaments were 
to be had for lod. and whole Bibles for 3s. 6d. Many 
Highlanders walked great distances to obtain these 
books. Little Bible Schools sprung up in the moun- 
tains, where old men learned to read in their own 
tongue the wonderful Word of God. 
Bibles in five During the first twelve years of its 
tongues in Great history the British and Foreign Bible 
Britain. Society printed and distributed Bibles 



The Travels of the Book 147 

and Testaments to the number of 1,605,222 in the 
five languages of the British Isles; English, Gaelic, 
Erse, Manx, and Welsh. Auxiliaries sprang up in 
town and country; among them the Edinburgh 
Bible Society, the Dublin or Hibernian Bible Society, 
the Glasgow Bible Society, and societies many, big 
and little, in English cities and towns. The country 
was wretchedly poor, the National debt was crush- 
ing, the potato crop had failed, but the people pressed 
forward to buy Bibles. "We'll buy a little less meal 
and take home the Word of God with us," they said. 
A poor blind beggar with five children bought a 
Testament. "I would grieve less to know that my 
child was hungry," she said, "than to have it live 
without the Word of God." 

Expansion on the From Great Britain the Society 
Continent. promptly extended its work to the 

continent of Europe in a very Pentecost of interest 
in the Bible. An Icelandic Bible was brought out and 
an auxiliary founded in Iceland. A Bible Society was 
organized in Stockholm, which later became the 
National Bible Society of Sweden. Societies were 
established in Denmark, Germany, France, the 
Netherlands, Austria, and Switzerland. In 18 13 the St. 
Petersburg Bible Society was founded in the pres- 
ence of members of State and nobles and the 
highest dignitaries of the church. In every case these 
societies were helped to organize by grants from the 
treasury of the British and Foreign Bible Society. 
The Russian Bible Later some of these societies incurred 
Society. the hostility of the hierarchy and were 

suppressed. The Russian Bible Society was under 
the protection of the Czar, who had ordered the New 



148 The Bible and Missions 

Testament introduced into schools and colleges. 
The people in many villages gathered to listen to the 
words of the Saviour. Bibles were reaching the pris- 
oners and the sailors. Then the Holy Synod took 
fright. They feared the effect of the Bible on the 
common people and in 1826 were strong enough to 
bring about the edict suppressing the Russian Bible 
Society, which at that time had 289 auxiliaries. 
Fortunes of The Pope, too, took action against 

Continental Bible the circulation of the Scriptures in 
Societies. Poland and Austria, and reactionary 

governments often made its circulation difficult. 
Some of these Continental societies organized in the 
early decades of the nineteenth century have per- 
sisted. Fifty were listed at the time of the Edin- 
burgh Conference in 19 10. For the most part, how- 
ever, these societies have confined their work to the 
publication of Bibles in their own language, leaving 
the greater part of the publication of Bibles for the 
non-Christian lands to the three great societies of the 
English-speaking world. 

The Scotch Bible The National Bible Society of Scot- 
Society, land grew directly out of the Edin- 
burgh Auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible 
Society. The separation came when a difference of 
view arose in regard to the including of the Apochry- 
phal Books in the Bible. To this the Scotch objected, 
and, although a concession was made to their views, 
it did not come in time to avoid the foundation of a 
separate society. 

Beginnings of The first Bible Society in America 
Bible Society in was organized in Philadelphia in 1 808. 
America. 'pj^jg ^^^ aided by the British and 



The Travels of the Book 149 

Foreign Bible Society, by a grant of one thousand 
dollars and a supply of the Scriptures in Welsh, 
Gaelic, French, and German for use among the immi- 
grant peoples of those days. The following year six 
more Bible Societies were formed, among them the 
New York and Massachusetts Societies. As soon as 
these societies were formed and a systematic inquiry 
made in regard to the supply of Bibles, it was found 
that many communities had hardly a Bible. In 18 12, 
when Louisiana was admitted to the Union, a long 
search was made for a Bible on which to administer 
the oath of office. At last a priest was discovered 
who had a copy of the Latin Vulgate. It was esti- 
mated that there were at least 78,000 families desti- 
tute of the Word of God. 

Organization of In 1816 a Convention of delegates 
American Bible representing thirty-one institutions 
Society. ^^g called in New York City, and the 

American Bible Society was orga.nized. Some of the 
most distinguished men of the nation were present 
at the meeting. Among them was Hon. Elias Boudi- 
not, then president of the New Jersey Bible Society, 
and distinguished for his services during the Revolu- 
tion; Samuel J. Mills, a moving spirit in the first 
organized Foreign Mission work in America; Rev. 
Lyman Beecher, John Griscom, Valentine Mott, the 
great surgeon; Joseph C. Hornblower, later Chief 
Justice of New Jersey; James Fenimore Cooper, 
EliphaletNott, William Jay, Col. Richard Varick, and 
others hardly less distinguished. The following week. 
May 13, 1 8 16, a great ratification meeting was held 
in the Sessions Court Room of New York's beauti- 



i^o The Bible and Missions 

ful new City Hall, now the Board of Estimates* room 
in New York's beautiful old City Hall. 
Distinguished The first President of the Society was 
names in the Boudinot; and Hon. John Jay, the 

Society. fij-st Chief Justice of the United 

States, became first Vice-President and later the 
second President of the Society. From that day to 
the present a long line of distinguished Americans 
have backed the Society with their influence and 
their active support. President John Quincy Adams 
for thirty years continued his active connection with 
the Society. Other Presidents, Andrew Jackson, 
Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. 
Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, Theo- 
dore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson have, by their 
outspoken advocacy, furthered the great ends of the 
Society. So have Chief Justices Marshall, Chase, 
and Fuller, and Justices McLean, Harlan, Brewer, 
Hughes, and other members of the Supreme Court. 
Many Governors have given their hearty support, 
among them DeWitt Clinton, who while Governor 
of New York came down from Albany regularly to 
attend the monthly meetings of the Board of Mana- 
gers. If one were to run over the names of the men 
who have made the America of the last one hundred 
years, it is safe to say that the great majority of them 
have been men who honestly and cordially recognized 
the supreme value of the Bible in our national civil- 
ization, and were true friends of the American Bible 
Society. 

Bible recognized The founders of the Republic realized 
by founders of the the importance of the Bible, before 
Repubhc. ^^yy Bible Society had been organized 



The Travels of the Book 151 

in the whole world. Once in 1777 and again in 1782 
the Congress of the United States took official ac- 
tion toward the obtaining and supplying of Bibles. 
England had retained the publication of the Bible 
in her own hands. None were published in the Colo- 
nies, and so with the opening of the Revolution the 
supply of Bibles was cut off. In 1777 Congress au- 
thorized its committee to import 20,000 copies of the 
Bible. ''This order was accordingly made." In 1782 
the first English Bible ever printed in the United 
States, that printed by Robert Aitken of Philadel- 
phia, was put out under the auspices of Congress by 
the passage of the following resolution: 

Sept. 2, 1782. 
Resolved, that the United States in Congress assembled 

recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants 

of the United States. 

(Signed) Charles Thomson, 

Secretary. 

Common charac- Such in brief is the story of the 
teristicsofthe great founding of the three great Bible 
Bible Societies. Societies of the English-speaking na- 
tions. Certain principles and policies characterize 
all three. 

I. 'The printing of the Scripture without note or comment. This 
wise restriction has made it possible to serve churches of the most 
divergent views. 

1. Publishing of translations into the languages of the non- 
Christian world. 

3. SeUing the books at so low a price as to put them within 
the reach of the poorest. In pursuance of this policy Bibles are 
often sold at a mere fraction of their cost. 

. 4. The printing of separate portions as well as entire Testa- 
ments and Bibles. 



152 The Bible and Missions 

5. Defraying the cost of translations in the various mission 
fields of the world. 

In pursuance of their policy of translating the 
Scriptures these and the European Bible Societies 
have pushed out to the rim of the world, until today 
the Bible is the Universal Book. The prime reason 
for requiring the immigrants at Ellis Island to dem- 
onstrate their ability to read by reading from the 
Testament is because it is the only book published 
in all the languages spoken by the immngrants. 
Value of Bible Without the co-operation of these 
Societies in mis- great Bible Societies it is difficult to 
sionary enterprise, gee how the preparation of the trans- 
lations could have been financed. Year after year 
grants have been made to some missionary or com.- 
mittee in aid of the translation of the Bible. The first 
book ever published by the British and Foreign 
Bible Society, in 1804, was St. John's Gospel in the 
language of the Mohawk Indians, a great expense for 
few people. The same society voted Morrison ^50,- 
coo for expenses incurred in preparing and printing 
his first Chinese Bible. With no niggardly hand the 
societies co-operate with the missionaries, preparing 
the versions, printing the editions, and sending them 
out, carriage free, to stations often most remote. From 
one agency in one year missions of seventeen differ- 
ent denominations have been supplied with Bibles. 
Enormous and The enormous and continuous sale 
continuous caie of of the Bible Staggers belief. Year 
the Bible. after year, decade after decade, the 

sale goes on, gathering volume as it goes. It is diffi- 
cult to bring together the total sales. There are the 
Bible Societies, the commercial publishing houses 



^' 







:#'^% 










%^ 



THE OLD. OLD STORY IN THE PHILIPPINES 



The Travels of the Book 153 

such as The Oxford Press, or The Nelsons; there 
are denominational publishing houses; missions such 
as the Scripture Gift Mission, the Pocket Testament 
League, the Los Angeles Bible House, and scores of 
others. It is estimated that 35,000,000 Bibles, Testa- 
ments, and Gospels were issued in 19 19, three-fourths 
of which were pubhshed by the Bible Societies 
throughout the world. In 1913 Japan bought 586,667 
Bibles, Testaments, and Gospels. For several years 
the Bible has been the best seller in Japan, as it 
has in China, which in 191 6 bought 2,271,771 copies 
of either Bible, Testament, or Gospel; in 1913 Korea 
purchased 389,401. The Filipino people in 1917 
bought 119,409 volumes in fifteen languages. 
Sales of Bible com- The significance of the sale of the 
pared with those Bible is seen only when its sales are 
of other books. compared with those of other books. 
In Christian countries there is no novelty to com- 
mend it, yet it sells steadily without any press agents 
or book notices. The most popular modern English 
author is Charles Dickens. It has been computed that 
since Pickwick Papers appeared 25,000,000 copies of 
Dickens*sworks have been published. The Bible sold 
35,000,000 in one year. Said a New York book-seller, 
"You may talk as you will of your multitudinous 
editions of popular novels, but the Bible leads them 
all, year in and year out." It is difficult to realize 
how many thirty-five million books are. Suppose, 
beginning at New York City and traveling to San 
Francisco, eight Bibles or Testaments were deposited 
at the foot of each telegraph pole beside the railroad 
track, there would be forty thousand left, out of the 
first million, when the Golden Gate of San Francisco 



154 The Bible and Missions 

was reached. At the end of the thirty-sixth crossing 
of the continent, after consuming at least three 
months of time, there would be 440,000 Bibles re- 
maining undeposited. 

Christ's The Bible Societies do more than 

vagabonds. finance Bible translation and print 

all kinds of editions of the Bible, big and little, and 
sell innumerable copies. They promote its sales 
through pedlers of the Book, Bible Vagabonds, 
Christ*s Wanderers. No chapter of Christian hero- 
ism is more splendid than that which recounts the 
story of the Colporter, humble like his Master, 
and like his Master going about to do good. The 
Colporter is ubiquitous. You can not lose him. 
If you ascend to the frozen North, he is there; if 
you bury yourself in the steamy depths of a South 
American river forest, he is ahead of you; if you 
climb the Himalayas and penetrate some high pass 
in Tibet, you will find his footprints. On his bicy- 
cle he hums along the highways of the Far West; 
on his snow-shoes he finds the lumberjacks in the 
big timber; his trusty Ford is seen skimming over the 
plains. He paddles down still rivers in an African 
dugout, or packs his Bibles on a Russian sled in the 
frozen fastnesses of Siberia. 

Colporters in These colporters are of all races as 
every land. well as in every nation. They are 

the John the Baptists who prepare in the desert a 
highway for the missionaries. 

// was a Japanese colporter who was visiting the 
schools in Kagoshima in January, 1914, and trying to 
sell Bibles to the students in a large medical school: 



The Travels of the Book 155 

"I don't want to read any ancient conceptions of two thousand 
years ago," said a student scornfully. 

"The sun was created millions of years ago," said the colpor- 
ter, "but its light still warms us." And he sold his book. 

// was a Chinese colporter who reported, *'When I 
come to villages where I have often been before, the 
children run to meet me, crying, 'The man with the 
heavenly books is here.* ** 

// was another Chinese colporter^ Khoo Chiang Bee 
of Singapore, who took long journeys to Sumatra and 
Johore, which necessitated his leaving wife and fami- 
ly for months, while he carried the Bible to hostile 
Moslem villages and actually succeeded in selling 
12,800 copies of the Scriptures. 

// was a Bulgarian colporter who came upon a gipsy 
camp and read the Gospel to them until midnight, 
with the result that they bought all his store of 
Testaments and Psalters. 

It was a Belgian colporter^ Canfriez, who got up 
every morning at 4.30 for nine days in succession 
that he might sell his Bibles during the popular 
pilgrimages near Namur. 

// was a Manchurian colporter who preached 
daily and sold Bibles at the Mongolian Temple Fair 
where 2,300 Buddhist Llamas were assembled. 

// was a Tamil colporter in South India who gave 
Gospels to some palm-climbers in exchange for 
cocoanuts, because they had no money. 

It was Old Kiniy the tiger hunter^ whom Bishop 
Lambuth met in Korea, **a grizzled old man with 
weather-beaten face and sunburned neck and shoul- 
ders furrowed by the claws of more than one tiger. 

'What have you in that bag. Brother Kim?* 



156 The Bible and Missions 

'Ammunition/ was his laconic reply with a smile, as 
he showed his New Testament and hymn book. 

*Do you no longer hunt tigers?' 

'No, Moksa, I am hunting for men.* '* 
Colporters of true // was a Chinese colporter who sold 
heroic stuff. himself as a slave so that in the hold 

of a coolie ship on the voyage to South America and 
in the mines he might tell his countrymen of Jesus. 

They were 'Tahitian sellers of the Book whose canoe 
was overturned one day in the boiling surf two miles 
off shore. When William Ellis went to their rescue 
he found the men supporting themselves on their 
paddles. They said that when the canoe sunk they 
forgot to be afraid of the sharks because they were 
thinking about their Bibles carefully wrapped in 
cloth and tied to the mast. 

It was English George Borrow, most noted of col- 
porters, who edited the Manchu New Testament in 
St. Petersburg, took journeys that carried him to the 
remotest parts of Spain, and out of them wrote his 
famous and altogether delightful Bible in Spain, 

It was a Greek colporter who visited every house 
in Athens in 1913. 

New Testament in In Japan, through the co-operation 
Japanese prisons, of the missionaries and the churches, 
a copy of the New Testament has been given recently 
to each of the twenty-six thousand prisoners in the 
part of Japan served by the American Bible Society. 
The great undertaking was conceived in the heart 
of a humble Japanese colporter who went out to walk 
one Sunday morning and passed by the big prison in 
Kofu. As he thought of the wretched prisoners with- 
in the gloomy pile, he remembered his ov/n salvation 



The Travels of the Book 157 

from a life of sin by Christ; his heart melted in com- 
passion, and a voice seemed to say, 

"Tomorrow go there with your Bibles/' 

He secured permission of the prison officials to 
present each of the eight hundred prisoners with a 
New Testament, if the books could be given free of 
charge. Confident that the Lord would supply him 
the funds, he stepped into the store of a prosperous 
merchant — not a Christian — and told him his story. 
"That is just what I would be glad to do! I will 
give you the money," said the merchant. 
A prison officer Within a Week several carloads of 
impressed. New Testaments were at the prison 

gate and the surprised official, who had never ex- 
pected that his conditions could be fulfilled, was 
saying, 

"Why is it that you have worked with such energy, 
baffled by no obstacles, to do this thing for these 
miserable men.^ I can not understand it." 

For over an hour the colporter opened the Scriptures 
and preached unto him Jesus. With tears in his eyes 
the official said, "Thank you for what you have done 
and said. I have known little about Christianity, 
but now for the first time I have some understanding 
of the true spirit of your Christ." 
Gifts from Jap- The changed attitude of the Japanese 
anese Christians. Government is seen in the fact that 
permission was given later to carry out the larger 
project of giving a Testament to the twenty-six 
thousand prisoners. When the project was known 
money began to come in from the missionaries, the 
churches, and the Sunday Schools. Baron Morimura 
heard of it and sent 300 yen. He was himself con- 



15B The Bible and Missions 

verted by reading Kochi Sari's book, My Twenty- 
three Years in Prison^ and ever since his conversion 
has been deeply interested in work among prisoners. 
Since this distribution of Bibles the Christian 
Governor of Kosuge prison reports that the Govern- 
ment has made it a rule to furnish each new pris- 
oner's cell with a copy of both the Christian and the 
Buddhist Scriptures. 

Christ in a It is only necessary to allude to the 

Korean prison. story of Syngman Rhee, the highly 
educated young Korean revolutionist, who was 
converted by reading the New Testament while 
suffering the agonies of one of the fetid prisons of 
the old days in Korea. In the prison with his feet in 
the stocks he cried, *'0 God, save my country, save 
my soul!" When he found Christ, he began to wit- 
ness to the prisoners and to the jailer who, like 
that jailer long ago, believed with all his house and 
was baptized. Dr. Rhee conducted classes for the 
prisoners and before his release had won more than 
forty to Christ, men perfected in suffering, who went 
forth for the regeneration of Korea. Dr. Rhee him- 
self left Korea when Japan took control, and went to 
the Hawaiian Islands, where he was appointed direc- 
tor of schools for the very large Korean population 
by the Hawaiian Conference of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. Sherwood Eddy tells his story fully 
in his book, The New Era in Asia, 
A Chinese Phil- It was the Bible that found Mr. 
anthropist gives Yung Tao, a rich and successful busi- 
New Testament, j^ggg j^^j^ ^f Peking, who since 1 900 has 
devoted himself to philanthropy and social welfare. 
So interested was he in the development of his na- 



The Travels of the Book 159 

tion that he undertook the education of four hundred 
young men in the Y. M. C. A. schools in North China. 
After long search through the various religions of the 
world he applied himself to the study of the Bible and 
became convinced of its supreme value. In 1914 he 
bought five thousand New Testaments, some of 
them in expensive bindings, to present to his friends. 
In 191 5 he gave an order for ten thousand Chinese 
Bibles in special binding, saying that it was his 
intention ultimately to distribute fifty thousand. 
Each of these Bibles contained a slip saying, "Re- 
spectfully presented by Yung Tao, who is not a 
church member." Not contented with giving Bibles, 
recommending them, and joining the Centenary 
Committee of the American Bible Society, Yung Tao 
gave an hour every day to the further study of the 
Bible with Mr, Edwards of the Peking Y. M. C. A. 
The result was that he who had so steadfastly com- 
mended the Book while declaring that he was not 
himself a Christian became a humble, ardent dis- 
ciple of Jesus, and was baptized by Rev. Chauncey 
Goodrich at the time of the Bible Society Centenary, 
May 17, 1 91 6. Twenty-seven others were baptized 
with him. That afternoon in Central Park, a beau- 
tiful place filled with huge old cypress trees, Yung 
Tao spoke before four thousand people of the power 
of the Bible to change men's hearts. 
The Bible finds A Hindu fakir with matted hair and 
a Hindu /aicfr. ash-besmeared body was sitting lost 
in meditation, when he chanced to see some torn 
leaves of a book, a part of John's Gospel, which some 
one had tossed away. He read words that were like 
water to a man dying of thirst. He showed his torn 



i6o The Bible and Missions 

leaves to an Englishman and asked him if he obeyed 
it. The Englishman confessed his faith in it, and as 
he handed it back th^ fakir noticed that he wore a 
black band on his sleeve. Concluding that this was 
the caste mark of one who obeyed the wonderful 
shastra he had found, t\it fakir put a black band on 
his own arm, as the badge of his new faith. Months 
later he wandered into a Christian church and pointed 
to his arm-band as proof of his discipleship. When he 
learned that it was an English sign of the death of 
some loved one, he said, *'But I read in the Book 
that my Loved One has died, so I shall wear it in 
memory of him." When later he received an entire 
New Testament and learned the gospel of the resur- 
rection, a new light shone in his face; and this be- 
came the badge of his discipleship instead of the 
black band which he took from his arm. 
Ministry to the In addition to the regular work of the 
soldiers. Bible Societies there is their wonder- 

ful ministry to the soldiers in time of war. In the 
Crimean and Franco-Prussian Wars, the War of' 
Italian Liberation, the Boer War, the Russo-Japa- 
nese War, and, most of all, in the great World War the 
presses have been kept running night and day to 
supply the demands of the army. The American Bible 
Society has issued for the use of soldiers and sailors, 
since the World War began, 4,541,455 volumes. 
For the fighting forces in Europe the Society has 
supplied 1,846,488 Scriptures in whole or in part since 
the War began. The British and Foreign Bible Socie- 
ty has distributed 7,000,000 Bibles, Testaments, and 
portions during the same period, not only among the 
troops of the British Empire, and the Allies and 




MISS ANNA JOHNSON— MR. WM. McPHERSON 

Teaching a Blind and Crippled Man to Read Braille with 

his Tongue. 



The Travels of the Book i6i 

assistants, but also among all their foes, in the very- 
ranks of their bitterest enemies. The National Bible 
Society of Scotland has distributed during four and 
one-half years 5,020,000 Bibles, Testaments, or 
portions. In all more than sixteen and one-half 
million copies have been distributed in eighty-one 
languages; thirty-four languages originating in Eu- 
rope, five in Asia Minor, twelve in Asia, eighteen in 
Africa, three in North America, and nine in the Is- 
lands of the Seas. 

Such a distribution, with the accompanying first- 
hand acquaintance of the Scriptures gained by sol- 
diers not alone in the camps and hospitals of Europe, 
but in Egypt, in war-torn Equatorial Africa, in 
Arabia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, 
and China, is one of the profoundest efforts for the 
furtherance of the gospel proceeding from the 
great World War. A Sower has indeed gone forth to 
sow on the blood-stained fields of war. Some of the 
harvests will wave with golden grain a century hence. 
Widespread con- The great distribution enlisted wide- 
tributions to the spread interest. The New York Globe 
^^^* conducted a campaign yielding ^5,- 

000, The Atlanta Journal $4,490, and from thirty- 
two other daily newspapers from every part of the 
country came equally energetic and enthusiastic 
support. "Governors, Members of Congress, Judges, 
philanthropists, editors, merchants, mechanics, 
clerks, sisters, mothers, housemaids, children, G.A.R. 
veterans, officers and soldiers in the ranks, churches, 
banks, department stores, theatres'' all helped. The 
money came in large gifts, small gifts, gifts of jewelry, 
of Liberty Bonds, of precious mementoes. Gifts 



i62 The Bible and Missions 

came, too, from the ends of the earth. General 
Hsiung Keh-Wu, Commander-in-Chief of the South- 
ern forces in Szechuan, sent two hundred Bank of 
China notes (j^So.oo) saying, "I know that what the 
Bible teaches makes men and nations great." 
Approval of The distribution of Bibles among 

mUitary leaders, the troops had the warm approval of 
the great military leaders. The Commander-in- 
Chief of the Allied armies. General Foch, wrote to 
the New York Bible Society: 

"La Bible est certainement le meilleur viatique que vous 
puissiez donner au Soldat Americain partant a la Bataille pour 
entretenir son magnifique ideal et sa foi." 

Pershing cabled, "I am glad to see that every man in 
the army is to have a Testament. Its teachings will 
fortify us for our great task." Leonard Wood wrote, 
*'If we can put the spirit of the Bible into our army, 
we need have no fear of the result." Field Marshal 
Haig sent a message to the American soldier through 
the New York Bible Society, "Knock impossibilities 
on the head; do it now. God is with you." Field 
Marshal Lord Roberts said to the British troops 
when crossing the Channel, ''You will find in this 
little volume guidance when you are in health, com- 
fort when you are in sickness, and strength when 
you are in adversity." Vice-President Thomas R. 
Marshall wrote, "The pocket New Testament is 
the most valuable thing which the soldier carries 
into the fight with him." President Wilson wrote, 
"They (the men of the army and navy) will need the 
support of the only Book from which they can get 
it." Theodore Roosevelt wrote to the American 
Bible Society, "Every soldier and sailor of the United 



The Travels of the Book 163 

States should have a Testament." Abraham Lincoln 
said it all long ago, during the years of the Civil War, 
when he said of the Bible, *'It is the best Book that 
God has given to men.'* 

The boys welcome That the Testaments were joyfully 
the Testament. received no one could doubt who ever 
saw the boys standing in line to get them, or read 
their letters which poured into the Bible House in a 
steady stream. 

**rve been reading this and it has changed my 
Hfe," Fighting Pat O'Brien of the Royal Flying 
Corps wrote. "A lot of men who have never thought 
much about religion are thinking about it now. I 
believe they will read those little khaki Testaments 
and I am sure they will get help from them." 

"It is strange how some people are affected by 
things," remarked the Camp Secretary. ''Now there 
was that private at Camp Custer. He wanted a 
Testament, although he could neither read nor write. 
*I can*t read,' he said, 'but I like to feel one in my 
pocket.' " 

The Pocket Testa- More than seventy thousand men 
ment League. signed the cards, "I accept Christ," 
in the handsome little Pocket-League Testament. 
These Testaments were presented personally to the 
men in the camps by members of the Business Men's 
War Council of the Pocket Testament League, who 
toured the camps giving out great numbers of them 
to those who would join the Pocket Testament 
League by promising to carry a Testament with them 
always, and to make a practice of reading it daily. 
Story of its The story of the Pocket Testament 

beginning. League itself is a wonderful example 



164 The Bible and Missions 

of the living power of the gospel. Some years ago 
Miss Cadbury, a young girl living in Birmingham, 
England, decided always to carry a Testament in 
her pocket. Other girls did the same. Later the 
League was extended to all sorts and conditions of 
men and women. In 1908, when Miss Cadbury be- 
came Mrs. Charles M. Alexander, her husband and 
Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman launched the League to 
endeavor to get people to read at least a chapter a 
day. More than 365,000 British soldiers joined the 
League during the four years of the war. 
In the Valley of In this War, as in every other since 
the Shadow. the British and Foreign Bible Society 

began its ministry, one hundred years ago, out of 
the depths men have cried unto God. After the 
bloody battle of Stone River during the Civil War, 
a lad of nineteen was found dead, leaning against 
the stump of a tree. His dead eyes were open, 
his face smiling, his hand laid on his open Bible 
at the words, '*Yea, though I walk through the 
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; 
for thou art with me." 

Seed sown by the Thousands have taken the books and 
wayside. got no good; thousands have carried 

them in their pockets as a talisman and felt little 
benefit; some have thrown them away or sold them; 
but thousands upon thousands have discovered the 
Word of God, and in that discovery have found their 
Father. Such a sowing in the blood-drenched fields 
of war has never been known. 

Some practical Pointing morals is not fashionable, 
pointers for Bible but there are some morals that point 
lovers. \\]^Q ^ gyroscopic compass. The facts 



The Travels of the Book 165 

of this chapter certainly have practical bearings on 
every Christian life: 

1 . The duty and privilege of joining the army of Bible readers. 

2. The financial support of the Bible Societies. 

3. The custom of carrying about Testaments or Bible por- 
tions in the language of some immigrant peoples and giving them 
out as opportunity offers. 

4. The launching of a National Campaign of Bible selling 
and Bible distribution. 

5. Increased honor of the Bible in our churches and homes. 

6. Furthering the enrollment in the Pocket Testament 
League. 

7. A campaign of newspaper publicity. 

Financial support It is to be feared that thousands of 
of the Societies, individuals and churches do not 
realize that the great Bible Societies need con- 
tinuous financial support if they are to maintain their 
blessed ministry. In the early years Bible Day was 
regularly observed each year in hundreds of churches. 
Now in thousands it is never mentioned. If every 
Sunday School member were asked to give Hve cents 
annually on a Bible Day, in which the glorious minis- 
try of the American Bible Society was clearly pre- 
sented, a fund of a million dollars a year would be 
placed in the hands of the Society. What this would 
mean in extending the influence of the Word of God, 
no words are vigorous enough to express. Some de- 
nominations have a noble record of faithful support 
of the Bible Society. Others are not so well repre- 
sented. Doubtless this is through failure to recognize 
that funds are actually needed. A perusal of the 
Annual Report of the American Bible Society will 
reveal whether our own church is honoring its devo- 
tion to the Bible in this tangible evidence of interest. 



OUTLINE OF CHAPTER V. 

Aim: To show that the Bible has a message for nations; that 

nations are held accountable for national sins; that the Bible 
conceptions lie at the bottom of all that is best in the laws 
and ideals of modern Christian nations, and that in the non- 
Christian nations the influence of the Bible is plainly seen. 

I. The Bible message for nations. 

1. Their accountability to the laws of God. 

2. Their punishment for national sins. 

II. Biblical foundations in modern Christian nations. 

1. Influence on the arts. 

2. Influence on Law. 

a. European codes. 

b. Roman law. 

c. English law. (Illustrations.) 

d. American laws. (Testimony of great men.) 

3. Influence through continuous education of church festi- 
vals and ordinances. 

a. The Sabbath, Sunday Schools, Christmas, Easter. 

b. Baptism, The Lord's Supper. 

III. The Bible's Influence on non-Christian lands. 

1. India, seen in growing appreciation of thoughtful men, 
changing status of women, loosening of caste bonds, rise 
of the Christian Community. 

2. Africa, Uganda, among the Sechuana, the Hottentots. 

3. New Zealand among the Maori. 

4. Pacific Islands, testimony of Darwin; service and 
testimony of Chalmers and Paton. 

5. Korea, a nation of Men of the Book. 

6. Japan, influence of early Christians, testimony of Count 
Okuma, changing status of women, prison reform, func- 
tioning of Christian conscience. 

7. China, influence of Christian missionaries, diplomats, 
education. Testimony of great officials. 

IV. The Bible goes back to its homeland. 



CHAPTER V. 

TRE bible's influence ON CIVILIZATION 

"Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet-anchor to your liberties, write its precepts 
in your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this Book we 
are indebted for all progress made in our true civilization, and to this we must 
look as our guide in the future." U. S. Grant, 1 8th President of the U. S. 

Topic of In preceding chapters we have out- 

Chapter, lined the Bible's own missionary 

character and message, have shown the enormous 
enterprise accomplished by Bible translators in fur- 
thering the worldwide propagation of the Christian 
message, and have discussed the rise and activities 
of the great Bible Societies which have made possible 
the worldwide distribution of the Scripture, through 
the co-operation of the various missionary agencies. 
In the present chapter we are to study the influence 
which the Bible exerts not alone upon individuals, 
but upon nations. 

The Bible has a The Bible has a message to the na- 
message to nations, tions. It Contains the story of one na- 
tion chosen by God for a great mission to the whole 
world. It addresses the nations almost as super- 
personalities, and plainly recognizes them as having 
an organic life and a national responsibility to the 
God of nations. Human society according to the 
Bible rests on no 'social contract,' but inheres in the 
plan of the Creator, who made men and nations to 
be members of one another in one great human 
family. 

National sins pay So Strong is the scnse of responsi- 
nationai penalties, bility to God on the part of nations 
and of smaller social groups that the Bible is full 



i68 The Bible and Missions 

of reproofs and dooms pronounced against those 
nations which forsook God. Jesus' woe pronounced 
upon Capernaum and Bethsaida (Matt, xi, 20-25) 
is in line with the dooms which the prophets pro- 
nounced against nations and cities at the very hour 
when their arrogant wickedness strutted defiant 
before the face of God. These prophecies make great 
reading to the traveler in Mesopotamia and Syria. 
Cyrus Hamlin A colonel in the Turkish army once 
and the Turkish asked Dr. Cyrus Hamlin, in Con- 
colonel, stantinople, for a proof that the Bible 
is the word of God. Dr. Hamlin did not immediately 
answer, but, learning that the colonel was a traveled 
man, he said to him: 

"Have you ever been in Babylon?'* 

"Yes," replied the colonel, "and I will tell you a 
curious incident. The ruins of Babylon abound in 
game; and once, engaging a sheikh with his followers, 
I arrived among th^ ruins for a week's shooting. At 
sundown the Ar^bs, to my amazement, began to 
strike their tents. I went to the sheikh and protested 
most strongly. I was paying him handsomely, but 
I nt>w offered to double the amount; but nothing I 
could say had any effect. 

'It is not safe,' said the sheikh, 'no mortal flesh 
dare stay here after sunset. Ghosts and ghouls come 
out of the holes and caverns after dark, and whom- 
soever they capture becomes one of themselves. No 
Arab has ever seen the sun go down on Babylon.' " 

Dr. Hamlin took out his Bible and read from the 
thirteenth of Isaiah: "And Babylon, the glory of 
kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, shall 
be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 



The Influence of the Book 169 

It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt 
in from generation to generation; neither shall the 

Arabian pitch tent there, but wild beasts of 

the desert shall lie there, and wolves shall cry- 
in their castles, and jackals in the pleasant palaces/' 
(Isaiah xiii, 19). 

'That is history you have been reading,** said the 
Turk. 

''No," said Dr. Hamlin, "it is prophecy. Those 
words were written when Babylon was in all her 
glory; and you know what Babylon is today." 
Biblical founda- No teaching is more needed today 
tions of modem than the plain Bible doctrine that 
civilization. Qq^ ^^s a will for the nations; that 

they are subject to his law, that those who break 
it will be punished as nations; that the Kingdom of 
God is no iridescent dream, but a great reality to 
be accomplished in this world through our co-opera- 
tion with the God of Nations in the upbuilding of 
human society. Were there opportunity in this 
brief sketch, it would be of wonderful interest to 
study the way in which the Bible has been wrought 
into the very substance of our civilization, modifying, 
or creating many of its features. Imperfectly obeyed 
and only partially known as the Bible teachings 
have been, they have laid the foundations of all that 
is glorious in modern civilization. There is room 
barely to allude to this phase of the question, since 
our main business is with the influence of the Bible 
in the nations among which the modern missionary 
enterprise is at work. 

The Bible influ- The change from the roll to the parch- 
ences the Arts. ment volume was made by th^ 



lyo The Bible and Missions 

Church in the copying of the Bible, so that we are 
indebted to the Bible that we read from 'biblia 
and not from rolls. In the illuminating of the old 
vellum manuscripts of the Bible, in the decorating of 
the churches with paintings of scriptural scenes, in 
the manufacture of jeweled cups and chalices, in the 
weaving of altar cloths, the artisans of the middle 
ages found the inspiration of their crafts. Lamps, 
cups of glass or gold or silver, ivory tablets and carv- 
ings, vestments and curtains, cathedrals and town 
halls, all show the ever-present influence of the Bible. 
The architects, the painters, the sculptors, the gold 
and silver smiths, the leather workers, the carpenters, 
the weavers, the lace-workers, all found the Bible 
molding and developing their crafts. Says Von 
Dobschiitz: 

"It was the Christian church which served to keep the old 
civilization alive through all troubles and dangers. When classi- 
cal training had nearly vanished everywhere else, it was found in 
some remote monasteries. Esteem of good style, love of ancient 
poetry, some chance bits of philosophy had safely weathered 
the storm. But it was only in combination with the Bible that 
those remains of classical reading were allowed to persist. The 
mediaeval civilization was Biblical at its base." 

The Bible influ- A young man who thought himself 
ences Law. an unbeliever started to read law. 

As he read Blackstone's Commentaries he continual- 
ly came upon references to the Laws of Moses as to 
a source undoubted and indisputable. Turning to 
study the Bible, which he had always neglected and 
despised, he was surprised to find how its principles 
underlay law, and, as he read, he became himself a 
believer. When King Alfred the Great collected to- 
gether the old Saxon laws for his people, he put the 



The Influence of the Book 171 

Ten Commandments at the beginning as the basal 
law of the land. The old German collections likewise, 
Schwahenspiegel^ Sachsenspiegel^ etc., present the 
law as based on the law of God contained in the Bible. 
The Canon Law quite naturally incorporated much 
from the Bible, though it often departed widely from 
its spirit in favor of more autocratic sources. The 
wonderful body of Roman Law was also deeply 
affected by principles derived from the Bible. The 
principles underlying Hebrew laws and the teachings 
of the New Testament were so wrought into the 
structure of Roman Law in the codes of Theodosius 
and Justinian as permanently to shape it. (See chap- 
ter V, vol. I, Millman's Latin Christianity?} 
The Bible in English law was least influenced by 

English Law. Roman law. "Down through the 
ages,** says Tenney in his Contrasts in Social Pro- 
gress^ "they (the English) pushed phrase upon phrase 

of Christian edict He will never understand 

how justice has come into the English world and fair 
dealing and kindness between neighbors, purity and 
self-control, who does not detect the hoary heads of 
sermons upon the pages of its black-letter law books. 
In the reign of Henry VIII. one hundred and sixty 
chancellors, and all the masters of the rolls during 
the first twenty-six years, were clergymen. The 
moral principles of Christianity as elaborated during 
many centuries were thus transmuted daily into 
law." Take for example the statement of Edward 
the Conqueror: "We know that through God's grace 
a thrall has become a thane, and a churl has become 
an earl, a singer a priest, and a scribe a bishop; and 
formerly, as God decreed, a fisher became a bishop. 



172 The Bible and Missions 

We have all one Heavenly Father, one spiritual 
mother which is called the Church, and we are there- 
fore brothers." 

^'Christian law, the guardian angel of a hundred 
generations, the absolute justice of the state, en- 
lightened by the perfect reason of the state, is little 
else than the attempt to reduce the Golden Rule to 
practice," says Choate. 

"In two minutes I can tell you how to be a good 
lawyer — as good a lawyer as anybody," said Gover- 
nor Briggs of Massachusetts. "Just look over your 
case carefully, understand it, and then do what ycu 
think is right, and in nine cases out of ten you will 
have the law on your side." 

Slow conquest of Great evils, to be sure, have been en- 
BibUcal ideals. trenched in the law of Christian lands 
for centuries. The principles of the Bible have pene- 
trated slowly and with infinite difficulty into the 
violent and cruel lives of men; but, when once it has 
been clearly seen by any great number of the people 
that a cause, an institution, or a form of government 
is contrary to the Gospel, that day the cause, or 
institution, or government is doomed. 
The Bible influ- When we turn to our own country 
ences Constitution for an illustration of the influence of 
of United States, the Bible on national life and customs 
and character, the evidence is overwhelming. The 
Pilgrim Fathers came to America that they might 
freely carry out the principles they found in their 
Bibles. A small band of them protested against cur- 
rent ideas of political and religious freedom and were 
driven into the wilderness of Rhode Island. There 
they planted a State based squarely upon the prin- 



The Influence of the Book 173 

ciples of soul liberty, individual accountability, and 
God's government of nations. Ultimately they have 
given their ideals to the whole nation, as Oscar 
Strauss points out in his Life of Roger Williams, 

Illustrations of (l) When Jefferson drew up the Dec- 
Bible's influence, laration of Independence he stated 
that he had drawn many of the principles from his 
observations of the practices of self-government in a 
local Baptist Church. The earlier Mecklenburg 
Declaration was drawn up by delegates of Presbyte- 
rian churches. 

(2) It was Abraham Lincoln, a man steeped in the 
knowledge and love of the Bible, who blackened out 
from our laws the statutes permitting slavery. 

(3) It was the Supreme Court of the United States 
which handed down a decision affirming that this is 
a Christian country. 

Testimony of There is an embarrassment of riches 
great men. when one turns to the great men of 

all nations for their testimony regarding the influ- 
ence of the Bible on civil law and the institutions of 
free government. Said John Quincy Adams, "In 
whatsoever light we regard the Bible, whether with 
reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it 
is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowl- 
edge and virtue." Wrote Horace Greeley, *'It is 
impossible mentally or socially to enslave a Bible- 
reading people. The principles of the Bible are the 
groundwork of human freedom." Queen Victoria 
gave a Bible to a pagan ambassador who had in- 
quired the secret of England's greatness, saying, 
"This is the secret of England's greatness." Froude, 
in his essay on Calvinism, says, "All that we call 



174 The Bible and Missions 

modern civilization, in a sense which deserves the 
name, is the visible expression of the transforming 
power of the gospel." The new Commissioner from 
the Philippines, Teodora Yanco, said recently that 
his predecessor, Mr. Quezon, told him, **Study the 
Bible because the Bible is the underlying secret of 
American philanthropy. The business men of Amer> 
ica have been launched into all kinds of philanthropic 
effort in behalf of their fellow men, because America 
is a land where the Bible is honored and read." Of 
the Bible said Garibaldi, ^'This is the cannon that 
will make Italy free." Six years ago the Governor of 
Michigan declared in a message to the State Legisla- 
ture, **The Bible is our Constitution of Christian 
Civilization." Said Gladstone, "My only hope for 
the world is in bringing the human mind into contact 
with Divine revelation." Said G. Stanley Hall in 
an address on The Teaching of Morals, "To cultivate 
morality one must appeal, as the Bible does, to the 
moral sense rather than to reason. Hence life must 
be leavened with religion and children infected with 
Christianity." Of Justice Harlan of the Supreme 
Court it was said that he went to his rest each night 
with one hand on the Bible and the other on the 
Constitution of the United States. 

The Bible influ- Modern music was born in the service 
ences music. of the Church. The greatest music 

that has ever been written is Christian in its occasion, 
theme, or inspiration. Outside of nations under the 
fructifying and radiant im^pulses of the gospel, no 
great music has ever arisen. The great masters have 
been the servants of the Bible. 



The Influence of the Book 175 

The Bible infiu- President Schurman of Cornell has 
ences through Commented on the educative power 
church ordinances of the Christian Sabbath on our na- 
and festivals. ^io^al life. Week after week, month 
after month, year after year, century after century, 
the hearts of the- people are summoned to the 
thought of God through the recurring Christian fes- 
tival of the Sabbath. At least four hundred thousand 
sermons based on the Bible are preached every week 
in gatherings held for religious purposes. We com- 
plain sometimes that people do not go to church. The 
miracle is that there is one topic which for fifty-two 
weeks in a year, for one hundred years in a century, 
can. draw people out to hear it discussed by men of 
usually no more than ordinary ability. A great speak- 
er might fill the largest hall on a political topic for 
two or three or possibly ten weeks running. There is 
no topic but religion which could get him an audi- 
ence for a year, much less for two or ten. "Every 
period of English-speaking history assures us that 
our moral power increases or weakens with the rise 
or fall of Sabbath reverence," says McAfee in The 
Greatest English Classic. It is worthy of remark that 
no religion except the Christian has developed any- 
thing comparable to the local congregational groups 
meeting weekly for social worship, fellowship, and 
instruction. This is a characteristic functioning of 
Christianity of enormous social power. Join to the 
Sabbath, the Sunday School, the Christmas and 
Easter festivals, the ordinances of baptism and the 
Lord's Supper, and you have a group of institutions 
whose steady pressure upon the national life is as 
immeasurable as it is unnoted. 



176 The Bible and Missions 

The Bible influ- Turning from Christian nations, or 
ence on non-Chris- more properly nations on the road to 
tian nations. become Christian, let us consider the 

marvelous transforming influence of the Bible as seen 
today at work in the so-called non-Christian nations 
of the world. In considering this we shall not em- 
phasize the direct religious influence which is pri- 
marily exerted upon individuals, the cell-life of 
nations, but consider rather those lower and more ob- 
vious eff'ects to be seen in customs and institutions. 
In reality when we know the revolutionary power of 
the Christian gospel upon individuals, we need not 
stop to consider anything else, since what changes 
the cell changes the organism. But in deference to 
our slowness-of-heart-to-believe in that which is 
spiritual and unseen the lesser inquiry has its place. 
Influence of Bible India, one of the great heathen na- 
on India. tions (non-Christian seems too weak 

a term to describe India's spiritual wire entangle- 
ments) has been longest under the impact of civiliza- 
tion colored by Biblical conceptions and principles. 
India is one of the most difficult, if not the most 
difficult field in the world. Yet the traces of the 
Bible's influence in Indian life are written large for 
him who runs to read. An address was delivered to 
the students in St. Paul's College, Calcutta, recently, 
by a leading Hindu, Sir Narayan Chandavarkar, 
which shows the estimate placed on the Bible by 
leaders of Indian thought, even though they do not 
avow themselves Christian. He showed the students 
his well-worn pocket New Testament, told them that 
it had been his daily companion for thirty years, and 
recommended to them his daily habit of reading the 



The Influence of the Book 177 

Epistle of James before dawn, to lift their thoughts to 
God. 

Said one of the Indian Rajahs, "If I were a mis- 
sionary I would not argue, I would distribute the 
New Testament." If the royal gentleman had con- 
sidered that even after a century of promotion of 
education by a Christian Government and by Chris- 
tian missions only one man in ten and one woman in 
a hundred can read, he might have recognized some 
other forms of Christian service as also needful. 

It was the Maha-Rajah of Travancore who gave 
this testimony to the power of the Bible, "Where do 
the English get their knowledge, intelligence, clever- 
ness, and power? It is their Bible which gives it to 
them; and now they have translated it into our 
language, bring it to us and say, 'Take it, read it, 
examine it, and see if it is not good.' Of one thing I 
am convinced, do what we will, oppose it as we may, 
it is the Christian Bible that will sooner or later work 
out the regeneration of our land/* 
The elevation The evidences of the loosening of the 
of the outcastes. strangle-hold of caste have multiplied 
during the war. Many of these 53,000,000 dispossess- 
ed working people of India went into the war. They 
came back with a vision of a new world. The upper 
classes were obliged to break caste regulations in the 
very act of crossing the seas and in the multitudinous 
contacts on the journey and in the field. They re- 
turned with a new vision. In no respect is the influ- 
ence of the Bible to uplift whole communities more 
clearly seen than among these very outcaste Chris- 
tians, who are 'stepping down into Christianity,' as 
the Hindus say, at the rate of ten thousand a month. 



178 The Bible and Missions 

When they become Christians, — poor and ignorant 
though they be — they begin to clean up. 

When plague comes these simple Christians, freed 
from the base superstition of other outcastes,obey the 
sanitary rules given them by the missionaries, and 
excite the superstitious envy of their neighbors by 
their immunity from plague. In education, too, the 
change is marked. While the census of 1901 showed 
that among the whole fifty-three millions of out- 
castes only one-half of one per cent were able to read, 
among the Christians the census of 191 1 showed a 
higher percentage of literacy than even that of 
the Brahmins; the Christian percentage of literacy 
being 22 per cent as compared with an average of 6 
per cent for all India. Yet 80 per cent of the Chris- 
tian population is made up of 'untouchables.' An- 
other curious revelation of the fact that the Bible 
teaching does actually uplift socially and intellect- 
ually is that after becoming Christians the 'untouch- 
ables' are no longer considered ^untouchables' in 
many parts of India. Some of their children even 
become teachers in caste schools; not a few gain 
University degrees. 

The changing According to the most revered and 
status of woman, ancient Hindu laws, women are shut 
out from participation in social life, in religious 
privileges, in the kingdom of the mind. They are 
married in childhood, become mothers at the dawn 
of adolescence, and upon the death of their husbands 
are doomed to perpetual widowhood. During the 
hundred years in which India has been under the 
impact of Bible ideals these changeless customs and 
inhibitions affecting women have been silently under- 



The Influence of the Book 179 

mined until today India is almost ready publicly to 
break with many customs long-buttressed by reli- 
gion. Indian women are demanding education, are 
entering professional life, are coming out of their 
seclusion. There is not a department in their life 
unaffected by contact with Christian women of the 
West, and bythediffusionofthe Christian Scriptures. 
Uganda's marvel- Uganda is not Only the scene of the 
ous transformation. most wonderful transformation of a 
whole people in all Africa, but one of the most won- 
derful in the whole world. Those who remember 
Stanley's description of the violence and evil which 
marked the life of the Baganda people, and his ap- 
peal for missionaries to their dark land can realize 
the miraculous change which has been effected in 
less than fifty years. From the days when King 
Mtesa wavered between belief and persecution, when 
the first Christian martyrs laid down their lives in 
flame and torture, when Bishop Hannington 'opened 
the way to Uganda with his life,' when Mackay 
toiled and Pilkington translated the Scripture is a 
time well within the memory of living men. Today 
the country is dotted with churches and school houses 
built and maintained by the people. There is a vast 
cathedral, the product of African workmanship and 
African gifts. In it a vested choir discourses sweet 
music and great multitudes kneel in prayer. Mis- 
sionaries drawn from the native church are freely 
supported among the heathen tribes. A constitu- 
tional monarchy with well-regulated laws has been 
established, and the Prime Minister, Apolo Kagwa, 
a black statesman, attended the coronation of 
Edward VII. Not only did he attend the coronation, 



i8o The Bible and Missions 

but he wrote a delectable book about his experiences, 
on his return home, and multitudes of his country- 
men bought it and read it. Uganda today is no savage 
wilderness. It has its railways, its harnessed water- 
power, its post office and roads, its cultivated farms 
and neat homes. The Bible is the sole and sufficient 
cause of this transformation. There are other African 
tribes where trade has gone without the Bible and 
degraded the people even as it has purchased their 
goods. There are other peoples where European 
governments have taken control, only to ruin them. 
The missionary with his Bible got to Uganda, and 
got there first. 

Jean Mackenzie in her Africcm ^rai/ recounts how 
the coming of the Bible begot confidence and mutual 
trust between suspicious tribes: 

"Before the people of God began to spring up in the forest 
there was no intertribal talk of 'brother' unless between allied 
tribes. I once heard long talk of this matter on a forest journey. 
I had four hammock carriers, each of a different tribe. 

This walking that we walk today,' they told each other on 
that journey, *is a strange walking for black people to walk; four 
men of four tribes walking in one company and doing one work. 
God alone could unite us after this fashion.' And to the white 
woman they said, 'Before the time of the things of God, not one 
of us but would have feared to meet the other. Ah, brothers, 
is it not a true word?' 

'He tells the truth!' 

*And now, we eat together and we sleep together like people 
of one village.* " 

A story by David David Livingstone told how the 
Livingstone. teachers found the Sechuana Testa- 

ment a powerful weapon. They said, "We thought 
it was a charm of the white people to ward off sick- 
ness, or that it was a trap to catch us. We had never 



The Influence of the Book i8i 

heard of such a thing. Our fathers who have all died 
in the darkness could not tell us about it. We thought 
it was a thing to be spoken to; but now we know it 
has a tongue. It speaks and will speak to the whole 
world." 

Hottentot In 1 836 the wild men spoke for them- 

testimony. selves in a great meeting in London, 

convened by the London Missionary Society. Said 
the Hottentot delegate; ''When the Bible came to us 
we were naked; we lived in caves and on the tops of 
mountains; we painted our bodies with red paint. 
The Bible charmed us out of the caves and from the 
tops of the mountains. Now we know there is a God.'' 
The Bible influ- The influence of the Bible in trans- 
ences the Maoris, forming the island tribes of the Pacif- 
ic has been marvelous. Maori soldiers have been 
among the best troops which New Zealand sent to 
the front in France. It is not three generations since 
their ancestors were naked savages. In 1839, with- 
out teacher or missionary, a solitary page of the 
catechism containing the Ten Commandments led 
one tribe to turn to the true God, to burn their idols, 
and to keep the Sabbath. One of the beautiful 
stories of those early days is of Tarore, the little 
daughter of Ngakuku, a converted chief. She always 
carried her father's copy of the Gospel of Luke, and, 
since she knew how to read, conducted the simple 
worship in her father's hut. At one time when he was 
traveling with an English party they halted for the 
night at Wairere, "flying water," and while they 
slept were attacked by a war party of the heathen. 
Ngakuku fled, carrying his little son, but in the con- 
fusion Tarore, sunk in sleep, was left behind. Her 



1 82 ' The Bible and Missions 

murderers carried off her Gospel with the rest of the 
plunder. The robber chieftain read it, repented of his 
evil life, and longed to join the Christians. He wrote 
a letter to Ngakuku, asking permission to enter the 
chapel, and soon this Maori Christian and the 
murderer of his child "were worshipping God together 
in the same place," as the Maori story has it. 
Charles Darwin Charles Darwin, the great naturalist, 
testifies. witnessed to the transformation which 

the Bible had wrought in Tahiti, one of the Society 
Islands, when he visited the island in the Beagle in 
1835. When the missionaries landed at Tahiti in 
1796, the islanders were sunk in incredible degrada- 
tion. Constant war, shameless and bestial immorali- 
ty, cruelty and superstition that descended to human 
sacrifice darkened the land and made life hideous. 
At first there seemed to be no higher self to appeal to; 
the soul of the people seemed seared as if with a 
branding iron of evil. But after heroic suffering and 
faithful witnessing to the truth on the part of the 
missionaries, they saw EzekieFs miracle of the valley 
of the dry bones wrought once more. Mr. Darwin 
made an inland trip through the island where he had 
every opportunity to observe the natives in their 
daily life. He wrote: 

"Before we laid ourselves down to sleep, the elder Tahitian 
fell on his knees, and with closed eyes repeated a long prayer in 
his native tongue. He prayed as a Christian should do, with 
fitting reverence, and without the fear of ridicule or any ostenta- 
tion of piety. At our meals neither of the men would taste food 
without saying beforehand a short grace. Those travelers who 
think that a Tahitian prays only when the eyes of the missionary 
are fixed on him should have slept with us that night on the 
mountain." He goes onto discuss the rumor "that theTahitians 



The Influence of the Book 183 

had become a gloomy race, and lived in fear of the missionaries"; 
he says: "Of the latter feeling I saw no trace, unless, indeed, fear 
and respect be confounded under one name. Instead of discon- 
tent being a common feeling, it would be difficult in Europe to 
pick out of a crowd half so many merry and happy faces." He 
then replies to those who were ever ready to point out still-ex- 
isting defects in the South Sea Islanders, and blame the mission- 
aries for these. He continues: "They forget, or will not remem- 
ber, that human sacrifices and the power of an idolatrous priest- 
hood, a system of profligacy unparalleled in any other part of the 
world, infanticide, a consequence of that system, bloody wars 
where the conquerors spared neither women nor children, — that 
all these have been abolished, and that dishonesty, intemper- 
ance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced by the intro- 
duction of Christianity. In a voyager, to forget these things 
would be base ingratitude; for, should he chance to be on the 
point of shipwreck on some unknown coast, he will devoutly pray 
that the lesson of the missionary may have extended thus far." 

Services of mis- The influence of the missionaries, 
sionaries to Pacific which is only that of the Bible in- 
isianders. carnated in a human life, has been 

one of the strongest agencies acting in behalf of the 
child races of the Pacific Islands in opposition to 
cruel greed and oppression. They were American mis- 
sionaries who exposed the infamies of the sandal- 
wood trade and the kidnapping of islanders for 
forced work in South America. It was the mission- 
ary hero. Rev. John G. Paton, whose revelations of 
the iniquities of the liquor traffic in the South Seas 
induced the Congress of the United States and the 
governments of Europe to prohibit by interna- 
tional agreement the sale of liquor to these islanders. 
It was James Chalmers, the Captain Greatheart 
of New Guinea, whose services made it possible for 
Great Britain to extend her sovereignty over a large 
part of New Guinea without bloodshed and with a 



184 The Bible and Missions 

scrupulous safeguarding of native rights never be- 
fore known in such an agreement between white men 
and savages. Mr. Chalmers was cordially hated by 
land-grabbers and kidnappers of Kanaka labor. His 
influence with the government, because of his first- 
hand acquaintance with conditions gained by year? 
of living among these men of the Stone Age was 
sufficient to get incorporated into the government's 
plan of administration and treaty with the natives 
the prohibition of the importation of firearms, in- 
toxicants, and explosives, the safeguarding of Kana- 
ka labor, and the prohibition of the sale of land by 
a native to a white man. The commander of the 
British man-of-war who saw these chieftains trust- 
ingly affix their mark to papers whose contents they 
could not read, in sturdy confidence that ''Tamate** 
would not betray them, had a new vision of the power 
of Christian leadership. When in 1886 this militant 
missionary spoke of his years among savages he 
uttered this ringing testimony regarding the Bible's 
power to change native races: 

"I have had twenty-one years' experience among natives. 
I have seen the semicivilized and the uncivilized; I have Hved 
with the Christian native and I have lived, dined, and slept with 

the cannibals For at least nine years of my life I have 

lived with the savages of New Guinea; but I have never yet met 
with a single man or woman, or a single people, that your civiliza- 
tion without Christianity has civilized Wherever there has 

been the slightest spark of civilization in the Southern Seas it 
has been because the gospel has been preached there, and 
wherever you find in the island of New Guinea a friendly people, 
there the missionaries of the Cross have been preaching Christ. 
Civilization! The rampart can only be stormed by those who car- 
ry the Cross." 



The Influence of the Book 185 

Koreans, Men of Korea IS one of the outstanding in- 
the Book. Stances of the transforming effect of 

the Bible. When Christianity entered in 1884, the 
whole people were sodden in superstition and spirit- 
less from centuries of grinding between the upper and 
the nether millstones of China and Japan. The Kore- 
an Government was a mixture of corruption and 
weakness. Of public spirit there was none visible. 
But the Koreans in multitudes have become Men of 
the Book. They have supported their own churches 
and built them; they have sent their children to 
school and paid for their schooling. Of their language 
it can be said as was said of the Greek language, that 
it has *risen from the dead with the New Testament 
in its hand.' Upon such a people, newly awakened 
from the sleep of centuries, Japan imposed a policy 
of forcible assimilation. There are new blood and 
iron in the soul of Korea to meet Japan's policy of 
*blood and iron.' In a resistance devoid of violence, 
but full of quiet dignity and dauntless courage, 
Korea has appealed to that public opinion of the 
world which is itself the slow creation of the Bible's 
pressure upon the soul of humanity. The suffering 
of those who have died is not in vain. Korea in the 
might of meekness has saved her soul. All the gener- 
ous elements in Japan have been stirred to shame as 
they have read the story of militarism's doings in 
Korea. Sooner or later Korea will win either her 
absolute freedom or such an honorable part in the 
Empire of Japan as Canada has in the British Em- 
pire. It will be the Bible's influence, the Bible that 
put a new soul into Korea, the Bible which is build- 
ing up a new ideal in Japan.^ 



1 86 The Bible and Missions 

Japan's debt to The outstanding influence of Bible 
the Bible. Christianity in Japan has been freely 

acknowledged by leading Japanese statesmen and 
thinkers. The words of Count Okuma, the Prime 
Minister, sum up testimonies that might be quoted 
from many others to like effect: 

"Although Christianity has enrolled less than two hundred 
thousand believers yet the direct influence of Christianity has 

poured into every realm of Japanese life Christianity has 

affected us not only in such superficial ways as the observance of 
Sunday, but also in our ideals concerning political institutions, 

the family, and woman's station Japan received Buddhism 

and Confucianism from India, China, and Korea, and under their 
influence she declined. But under the impact of Western Chris- 
tianized thought Japan has revived." 

The disproportionate influence of Christian Japanese 
on their government was clearly seen in the first 
Parliament of 1880, when out of three hundred 
members thirteen were Christian, including the 
Speaker of the House. It is due to these outstanding 
Christians that the Bible's principles have gained 
recognition in the public life of Japan. 
Christian music The music of Christianity has pro- 
in Japan. foundly modified the music of Japan. 

When the missionaries first began to teach the 
children to sing it was thought that a special scale 
would have to be invented to fit the Japanese voice. 
Today Japanese choruses render the great chorals of 
the Christian faith, and the Union Christian hymnal 
is one of the best selling books in Japan. 
Improved status The Bible teachings have already 
of woman. profoundly modified the position of 

the Japanese women. A new sacredness is accorded 
to marriage. From the Empress to the humblest of 



The Influence of the Book 187 

her subjects all Japanese women are indebted to 
Christianity for their improved status. Christians 
have been the leaders in the determined war against 
government-recognized prostitution, as they have 
in the organized struggle against intempera jCQ. 
Christian influence Prison reform in Japan received im- 
in prison reform, petus in 1 875 when Dr. J. C. Berry se- 
cured permission to make a tour of inspection of the 
prisons. His report led directly to prison reform 
throughout the Empire. For this service he was years 
later presented with an Imperial Decoration. One of 
the immediate effects was the appointment of a 
Christian as chaplain in the prison in Kobe. As a re- 
sult of his teachings eight prisoners formed themselves 
into "The Company of the Covenant.'' Later the 
chaplain became superintendent and continued his 
blessed work. It was at about this time that a group 
of eighty convicts were reading Martin's Evidences 
of Christianity^ which an educated fellow-prisoner 
was translating for them into Japanese. When fire 
broke out in the prison they put out the flames and 
created no disorder. Their leader was pardoned and 
later started a private school in Otsu. 
Japanese Chris- When the history of Japan during the 
tians influential, last thirty years is studied it will be 
found that behind her wonderful achievement there 
has usually been some man, Japanese or foreigner, 
whose torch has been kindled by the Light of the 
World. Although numbering only one-half of one 
per cent of the population, the Christians of Japan 
are influential in all that shapes her higher life. In 
her public schools, her new philanthropy, her growing 
recognition of the human rights of her citizens, in 



i88 The Bible and Missions 

the currents of democracy now running silently but 
none the less strongly, Japan is influenced by the 
nations most deeply influenced by the Bible. 

During the present trouble in Korea, Japanese 
Christians have been fearless critics of the militaris- 
tic elements in their own government. Professor 
Nitobe, president of the newly established Christian 
College for Women in Tokyo, has boldly condemned 
his country's policy in Korea. Rev. Takashi Suzuki 
published in the Fukuin Shimpo, May 15, 1919, an 
article amazing in its frank recognition of evils and 
injustices in the Japanese policy in Korea. The arti- 
cle has been translated into English and reprinted in 
the September number of The Missionary Review of 
the World. It should be read by any one who desires 
to measure the force exerted in Japanese life by the 
Christian conceptions of right and duty. It is to be 
doubted whether America or England could show a 
finer example of the functioning of the Christian 
conscience on public questions. 
Bible influence in The clearest illustration of the influ- 
the opening of ence of the Bible upon a great non- 
China. Christian nation is China. That in- 

fluence is to be traced to the very beginnings of 
modern intercourse with China. The first treaty 
negotiated with America, in 1844, was accomplished 
through the services of Rev. E. C. Bridgman and Dr. 
Peter Parker, two men who in obedience to the Bible 
had left home and country and become Chinese to 
the Chinese, that they might win them to Christ. 
Their knowledge of the people and the language, and 
the confidence which the Chinese felt toward them 
were 'simply invaluable,' said the Hon. Caleb Cush- 



The Influence of the Book 189 

ing, that noble Christian statesman. It was this great 
American minister who secured in the treaty a clause 
prohibiting all traffic in opium between the two 
countries. The Chinese have long memories for this 
truly Christian service. It was through the medium 
of Morrison and Glitzlaff that England negotiated 
her first treaty. 

Services of Amer- In the histoHc treaty of 1858 two 
ican missionaries. American missionaries rendered not- 
able services to China, and the world. Dr. S. Wells 
Williams and Dr. W. A. P. Martin were the men who 
secured the first toleration clause which China had 
ever granted in any treaty. The far-reaching influ- 
ence of this clause makes it a Magna Charta in the 
story of Chinese freedom of thought and action. 
Dr. Williams, to whose persisterxcy, tact, and states- 
manship the greatest credit is due for this achieve- 
ment, became interpreter to the United States 
Legation in Peking, and so remained until 1876. 
The Hon. W. B. Reed, who was the American 
Minister to China when the treaty was negotiated, 
said: "Without them (Williams and Martin) public 
business could not be transacted. I could not but 
for their aid have advanced one step in the discharge 
of my duties here." It was S. Wells Williams who 
later, at the request of Commodore Perry, helped to 
negotiate the first treaty with Japan. 
Christian dipio- Not only have American mission- 
macy in China. aries deeply influenced the progress 
of the Chinese nation, but American diplomats, as 
well. Anson Burlingame, American Minister to 
China, was no less missionary because he represented 
the American nation. The Golden Rule diplomacy 



190 The Bible and Missions 

of John Hay was the very genius of the New Testa- 
ment in action. The Chinese can never forget that it 
was American Christianity and not American gun- 
boats that saved her integrity when Hay challenged 
the moral sense of the world in behalf of the integrity 
of China and in opposition to schemes of selfish ag- 
grandizement. 

The Bible in the An interesting story of the way in 
Imperial Palace, which the Bible was brought to bear 
on persons of the highest influence in the Chinese 
Government comes from the days of the Empress 
Dowager in 1896. 

The Christian women of China decided to present 
a Bible to Her Majesty on the occasion of her 
sixtieth birthday. They contributed $600 in gold, 
ten thousand of them uniting in the gift. For the 
first time a Chinese Bible penetrated into the Im- 
perial Palace, when the Empress received the sump- 
tuously bound and printed volume. Two days later 
the Chief Eunuch from the palace was sent out to 
buy a Bible and all the Christian books he could get 
for the Emperor. The full account of this visit of 
the eunuch is found in Dr. Hykes's pajnphlet The 
American Bible Society in China. (Centennial pamp- 
let No. 12, Pages 25-26.) Following this first order 
for books, in 1897 the Emperor sent for a list of 
one hundred and forty books, some scientific, but 
many religious. Among these books were Com- 
mentaries on the books of the Bible, The Life of 
Christ, Benefits of Christianity, Communion with 
God, and four sermons by Mr. Moody. The 
effect of this sending for Christian books by the 
Emperor was plainly seen in the greatly increased 



The Influence of the Book 191 

sales of the Scriptures. There is little doubt that the 
young Emperor in his inexperience and his new hope 
for his country was influenced by his reading to put 
forth his ill-fated edicts for reform the following year. 
The reactionary Empress Dowager could not de- 
stroy his proposed reforms, though she did delay 
them and destroy the Emperor. Many of his reforms 
are already established, others are on the way. 

Testimony of a In making one of his presentations of 
Chinese phiian- Bibles to the gentry to which allusion 
thropist. j^^g already been made, Mr. Yung Tao, 

the Chinese philanthropist, said: 

"Without the aid of Christian ethics it is impossible to reform 
society or to expel evil from men's hearts so as to produce a 
strong and virtuous nation. Many people believe that God has so 
miraculously preserved China for thousands of years because he 
has some great future for her. It may be. I do not know. But I 
believe my country has reached the supreme crisis in her history. 
The next few years will determine whether she is to have a great 
and useful future or is doomed to extinction. If she is to endure 
she must accept the teachings of the Bible. It is only by accept- 
ing the true God and fulfilling duty to him that a nation can 
endure." 

When later Mr. Yung Tao became a Christian, he 
spoke of the missionaries as follows : 

"Who loves China? The Chinese people? No! The merchants? 
No! The diplomats? No! Only the missionaries, who come here 
not asking to be paid, but asking to be allowed merely to work 
for China." 

Christian educa- In every part of Chinese life you can 
tion back of influ- trace the influence of the Book. When 
ential Chinese. ^^ decree establishing Western edu- 
cation was made, missionaries were asked to become 



192 The Bible and Missions 

the heads of government schools and colleges. Mis- 
sion-trained men leaped into positions of influence. 
If you were to name the twenty men most promi- 
nent in Chinese affairs today, it would be safe to 
hazard the guess that two-thirds of them received 
their first education in mission schools. The three 
men who represented China at the Peace Confer- 
ence were the products of Christian education, — two 
of them, certainly, outstanding Christians. 
Influence of one St. John's College, Shanghai, is a 
Christian college, notable example of the influence 
which Christian education has exerted on the na- 
tional awakening of the Chinese. Although the school 
was established in 1879, ^^ ^^^ ^^^ develop into a col- 
lege until late in the nineties. From that time until 
June, 1 91 7, it had graduated but 218 men. From this 
small group have come twelve men of national or 
international significance. They include Dr. W. W. 
Yen, late Minister to Germany; Dr. V. K. Welling- 
ton Koo, Minister to the United States and one of 
China's three representatives to the Peace Confer- 
ence; Dr. Y. T. Tsur, President of Tsing Hwa, the 
Indemnity college; Dr. Z. T. K. Woo, Superintendent 
of the Hanyang Iron and Steel Works, one of the 
greatest steel plants in the East; Mr. S. C. Chu, Gen- 
eral Secretary of the Shanghai-Nanking Railroad; 
the late Mr. T. T. Wang, Director General of the 
Chinese Students' Educational Commission at Wash- 
ington, D. C; Dr. Hawkling L. Yen, Secretary of 
the Board of Foreign Affairs; Mr. David Z. T. Yui, 
General Secretary of the Chinese Y.M.C.A.; Rev. 
P. N. Tsu, Rector of the Church of Our Savior; Dr. 
Yen Fu Ching, Dean of the Medical Faculty of 




AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR 

Chairman of Commission to the Far East on Christian 

Literature, appointed by Federation of Women's 

Boards of Foreign Missions 



The Influence of the Book 193 

Yale College in China, and Judge W. Y. Hu, Justice 
of the Supreme Court of Appeals, Peking. 
High officials cable During the Celebration of the Ameri- 
Am. Bible Society, can Bible Society, held in connection 
with the Methodist Centenary at Columbus, Ohio, 
last June, cable messages were received from some of 
China's most powerful leaders, among them the 
President of the Republic. Wen Shih Tsin, Commis- 
sioner of Foreign Affairs, cabled: "Darkness and 
gloom reign in China. The Bible is the only remedy 
by which we will save China, cure the corrupt officials 
and heal the ambitious politicians, inspire the educa- 
tors and uplift the poor; and the best of all is to tell 
our people how to do righteousness and sacrifice for 
our own nation.'* 

Message of a great A distinguished educator, Yu-Yue 
educator. Tsu, sent his message in English, as 

follows: "The translation of the Christian Bible 
into our national language has placed in the hands 
of our people a book than which there is none with 
greater power for moral uplift and spiritual enlighten- 
ment. The great ideas of divine love, human brother- 
hood, holiness, unselfish service, all culminating in 
the wonderful ideal of the kingdom of God on earth, 
are emphasized and exemplified in its pages as no- 
where else. They are powerful dynamics in undoing 
social wrongs and erasing class distinctions, in human- 
izing social relationships and democratizing govern- 
ments. They have condemned the opium traffic, 
raised the sts tus of women and children, purified the 
home, emancipated the slaves, energized the moral 
nature of man, taught the value of human life, pro- 
duced happiness in life and labor, and created a new 



194 The Bible and Missions 

conscience both for the individual and for the com- 
munity. The open Bible, the greatest heritage of 
Christendom, is now made accessible to China's 
millions, and it will not fail as their guide and in- 
spirer in the nation's upward struggle for moral 
perfection and spiritual freedom." 
Message of China's The President of the Republic of 
President. China cabled as follows: ''The in- 

struction concerning all virtue, as contained in the 
Holy Scriptures of the religion of Jesus, has truly 
exerted an unlimited influence for good among all 
Christians in China, and has also raised the standard 
of all my people along lines of true progress. I ear- 
nestly hope that the future benefits derived from the 
Holy Scriptures will extend to the ends of the earth 
and transcend the success of the past." 
The Chinese Gov- One of the most dramatic indications 
ernment asks of the influence exerted by the gospel 
Christians to pray. ^^^^ ^he national life of China was 
given on April 19, 1913. The Cabinet of the Chinese 
Government adopted on that day the following 
message, which was ordered to be sent to the pro- 
vincial authorities and to the leaders of the Christian 
Church in China: 

"Prayer is requested for the National Assembly now in ses- 
sion; for the new Government; for the President who is to be 
elected; for the Constitution of the Republic; that the Govern- 
ment may be recognized by the powers; that peace may reign 
within our country; that strong and virtuous men may be elected 
to office; and that the Government may be established upon a 
strong foundation. Upon receipt of this telegram you are re- 
quested to notify all churches in your province that April 
twenty-seventh has been set aside as a day of prayer for the 
nation. Let all take part." 



The Influence of the Book 195 

Not only was this day of prayer ordered, it was wide- 
ly observed not only by Christian believers but by 
leading officials, provincial and national. 
The Bible going It is an astounding fact that the 
back home again, great non-Christian nations of the 
world have been in league with Christian nations 
in defense of a cause whose taproot is the Bible. 
Outside of nations under the tutelage of the Bible 
there is not one which has ever grasped the first 
meanings of Democracy. The nations are looking to 
one standard. They are seeing that there is but one 
help out of their present distresses. Fresh light is 
waiting to break out of the holy pages — the only 
source whence light can come. **Our Bible, our 
Christ, our alphabet" came from the Orient. Today 
the Orient, by train and steamer, is coming to us to 
get back her own. A great sense of commonalty is in 
the air. Converging from every nation men are 
walking on paths that lead to the Holy City coming 
down from God out of Heaven, and to that united 
humanity which has washed its robes and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb. 

*'A glory gilds the sacred page, 
Majestic like the sun; 



Its truths upon the nations rise, 
They rise and set no more." 



OUTLINE OF CHAPTER VI. 

The Bible, a book-making Book. 



I. IN CHRISTIAN LANDS LITERARY INFLUENCE OF BIBLE SEEN, 

I. In Stimulating of books and libraries. 

{style, 
substance. 

3. In impression made by English literature on non- 
Christians. 

4. In impossibility of effacing its mark. 

II. INTRODUCTION OF BIBLE INTO NON-CHRISTIAN LANDS PRO- 
DUCES; 

1. A literate Christian community. 

2. Preparation of school text-books. 

3. Introduction and development of printing press (notable 
presses). 

4. Agencies for preparation and distribution of Christian 
literature. 

III. STUDY OF CHRISTIAN LITERATURE AGENCIES. 

1. The Tract Societies. 

2. Christian Literature Societies. 

Illustration: Work of Christian Literature Society of 
China. 

IV. STIMULATION OF LITERARY ACTIVITIES IN NON-CHRISTIAN 
LANDS. 

1. Writings of Japanese Christians. 

a. Translation. 

b. Original works. 

c. Illustration, Japan. 

2. Christward currents in writings of non-Christians. 

3. Gospel influence in the daily press. 

4. Advertising Christianity in the newspapers. 



The Leaves of the Tree 197 

V. INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON MUSIC IN NON-CHRISTIAN LANDS. 

I. Christianity's gift of song. 

1. The missionary and his hymnal. 

3. Popularity of Christian hymn books. 

4. Oriental hymn writers: Indian. 

VI. UNMET NEEDS FOR CHRISTIAN LITERATURE. 

I. Literature for the home. 

Needs of women. 

Needs of children. 

Illustration, Child* s Life of Jesus. 

Child's Magazine, Happy Childhood. 
1. Periodical literature. 

Needs of cooperative publishing. 
3. An Adequate Program. 

Expense of program. 

VII. OUTSTANDING OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADVANCE. 

I. United campaign of newspaper publicity, 
1. Utilization of phonetic script in China. 

Its importance and advantages, overcoming Chinese 
conservatism. 

America's possible contribution in printing of text-books. 

Opportunity for the Christian Church. 

VIII. CONCLUSION. 



CHAPTER VL 



THE LEAVES OF THE TREE 



"The mere ethical teachings of the Bible would alone stamp 
it as the greatest literary treasure of mankind." 

Goethe. 



A Book-making "The Bible IS a book-making Book. 
^°°^* It is literature which provokes litera- 

ture/* says McAfee in ne Greatest English Classic, 
The statement is so overwhelmingly true that it is 
difficult to illustrate it within the sharp limits of the 
present chapter. No race, for example, has ever 
read the Bible without an irresistible desire to write 
about it. A flood of sermons, treatises, histories, 
biographies, geographies, books of travel, theologies, 
philosophies, criticisms, defenses, dictionaries, en- 
cyclopedias, novels, poems, has flowed from under 
its portals like the river in Ezekiel's vision which 
from a rivulet became a torrent, waters to swim in, 
a river that could not be passed over. Nor is there 
any sign of an abatement in interest. Apparently 
the perennial interest of the Scripture demands that 
each generation wrestle afresh with its problems and 
afresh record its poignant reactions to the stimulus 
of the Book. 

Output of books This book-germinating influence of 
greatest in the Bible is marked when we compare 

Christendom. ^j^^ output of books on the part of 
nations longest under the Christian discipline with 
those longest under that of other great world re- 



The Leaves of the Tree 199 

ligions. In no one of the Oriental nations is the out- 
put of books comparable to that in Christian nations. 
During the last half century or more in which the 
ferment of the gospel has been actively at work in 
nations like India, China, and Japan, the effect upon 
the writing of books, as well as upon political and 
social institutions, has been clearly seen. In Oriental 
nations, like Tibet and Turkestan, and in Morocco, 
as yet virtually closed to the Bible, conditions re- 
main such as they were in the entire Orient when the 
era of modern missions began. Furthermore, the 
accessibility of the Bible and its wide diffusion 
among the people of Christian nations seem to be 
in direct relation to the amount and quality of the 
literary output. 

Christianity Take for example "-^ matter of pub- 
develops a lie libraries as it !s so strikingly 
book-reading brought out in President Tenny*s 
public. Contrasts i7i Social Progress, He says 

"There is no point of difference between Christian and non- 
Christian literature more notable than that relating to the pop- 
ularization of books. The Turkish Empire would have today 
ten millions of books in local libraries, scattered here and there 
in different cities and towns, if Islam favored popular education 
by literature as much as Christianity did in Great Britain in 
1880. Take Persia, where the people are nearly all Mohamme- 
dans; that kingdom would have today eight hundred libraries 
with six and a quarter millions of books in them, if their religion 
favored popular reading as much as Christianity in the United 
States. Two hundred millions of books would be upon the 
shelves of native libraries in India open to the reading of all 
castes, if Brahmanism were the match of Christianity in America 
for diffusing education by books. Here is Buddhism; there 
ought to be more than thirty-five hundred libraries here and 
there in Japan, with almost thirty millions of volumes in them. 



2CX) The Bible and Missions 

and there ought to be more than ten milUons of books in the 
native libraries of Ceylon, Siam, and Burma today, if their faith 
were as good a popular educator by books as Christianity is 
today in the United States. China, the most literary of the 
non-Christian nations, has no books to speak of, aside from one 
library of one hundred and sixty-eight thousand volumes, and 
small libraries in the eighteen provinces, and little gatherings of 
books in the Buddhist monasteries; but if Confucianism were as 
good a patron of books as Christianity in America, there would 
be in the Celestial Kingdom today more than twenty-nine thou- 
sand libraries, each averaging eighty-five hundred volumes. 
Christianity is a reading religion. When Saul, in the old story, 
saw any strong man, or any valiant man, he took him unto him- 
self. Strong and valiant books are in demand throughout Christen- 
dom. 'The mighty men of valor are the men of ideas." 

The Book Not only is it true that the Bible 

permeates breeds books about itself, and devel- 

ops a book-reading people; the Book 
also enters into and permeates the literature of 
Christian peoples. This is true in English literature 
to an extent little dreamed of. We are so accus- 
tomed to the fact that we fail to realize its signifi- 
cance. The very titles of the books we read are 
redolent of the Bible. A few examples may be 
given, taken quite at random from the multitude 
that might be cited. Mrs. Wharton's House of 
Mirth, Basil King's Abraham s Bosom, Rupert 
Hughes's T^he Unpardonable Sin, Ibanez's 'The Four 
Horsemen of the Apocalypse, are a few current titles. 
Dipping into the past we recall Ruskin's Crown of 
Wild Olives, Unto this Last, Seven Lamps of Archi- 
tecture, Milton's Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, 
Byron's Jephthas Daughter, Cain, Browning's Bells 
and Pomegranates, Saul, Raster Morning, Christmas 
Eve, Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, Whittier's 



The Leaves of the Tree 201 

Tchabod, If we turn from titles to substance we go 
from the shallows to the deep sea. Dr. Furnivall 
says that "Shakespeare is saturated with the Bible 
story.'' Milton is scriptural in the very fabric of 
his diction. The Pilgrim 's Progress is compounded of 
Biblical phraseology and ideas. From it Thackeray 
drew the title of his Vanity Fair^ though he took the 
motto of the book directly from the Bible. The 
Biblical phrases, quotations, and allusions in Brown- 
ing are so numerous as to obscure his thought to one 
not familiar with the Bible. Some one has counted 
five hundred such in 'The Ring and the Book alone, 
McAfee tells us. Longfellow's most exquisite meta- 
phors and similes are taken bodily from the Bible. 
VanDyke has found four hundred direct references 
to the Bible in Tennyson, and that leaves out those 
subtler echoes and nuances with which his pages are 
so full that no one whose mind is not steeped in the 
Bible can really appreciate him. Ruskin is a classic 
illustration of a literary style formed on the Bible. 
Familiarity with the Bible is stamped on the pages of 
Scott, Dickens, Macaulay, Lowell, Whittier, and a 
score of other names familiar wherever English and 
American books are read. Even writers avowedly 
out of sympathy with the Bible can not avoid in- 
debtedness to it, as for example, Shelley, when he 
writes, "Their errors have been weighed and found 
to have been dust in the balance; if their sins are 
scarlet, they are now white as snow, they have been 
washed in the blood of the mediator and redeemer. 
Time." On one editorial page of a recent number 
of Collier's Weekly the following Bible phrases or 
allusions were found: "Hiram, King of Tyre"; "Go 



202 The Bible and Missions 

down to the sea in ships'*; "Six days shalt thou 
labor"; "And they shall teach no more every man 
his neighbor." 

English literature The realization of this saturation of 
interprets Chris- English literature with the Bible came 
tianity to Japan, ^j^j^ poignancy to an American col- 
lege woman who, while spending a winter in Tokyo, 
was asked to fill temporarily a vacancy which had 
been caused by death in the faculty of the Peeresses 
School. She said to a friend later, "Until those 
eager girls asked me, day after day, to explain the 
meaning of this figure of speech or that phrase or 
that allusion or proper name, I had no idea of the 
way that the Bible entered into the very structure 
of our literature." Professor Nitobe of the Imperial 
University in Tokyo has testified that it was the in- 
direct presentation of Christian truth through works 
of English literature during a period in which he had 
denied to the missionaries any access to his soul, 
that led him to accept the Christian faith. 
impossibiHty of The all-penetrating influence of the 
blotting out Bible on modern literature may be 

Bible realized by an attempt to root it out, 

influence. \Ye should need to burn all Bibles. 

Testaments, and hymn books; then to mutilate every 
law book and commentary; to black out page after 
page in the works of the poets and to destroy entire 
books whose titles were Biblical. Hardly a novel 
of any standing would remain intact. The essays, 
histories, and biographies would be sadly mutilated. 
The works of Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer, and other 
scientists would not escape the tearing out of no 
inconsiderable portions. The greatest works of 



The Leaves of the Tree 203 

music would perish. The masterpieces of painting 
and sculpture would be defaced or destroyed. The 
most sublime buildings of Europe and America 
would need to be dynamited. Into every cemetery 
the iconoclast would g9 to chisel from the tombs 
the words of hope. The motto would need to be 
chipped from the walls of the Harvard Law School 
and from the great seal of this and other universities. 
Not a library could escape unscathed; not a church 
building be left standing. When all this were done 
the Bible would remain indestructible in the memo- 
ry of living men. To say nothing of Western na- 
tions, there are school children in China and Japan 
who can repeat the entire New Testament from 
memory. There are not a few Scotch Christians who 
have committed the Psalms and Isaiah to memory. 
It is perfectly within the bounds of fact to assert that 
in some heart each portion of Scripture is cherished, 
so that it could be reproduced were the printed record 
lost. To destroy the influence of the Bible it would 
be necessary to massacre every Christian, and even 
this would not be enough, for in their death they 
would surely repeat some precious word that could 
be erased from the memory of their murderers no 
more readily than could Paul forget Stephen's face 
and Stephen's dying prayer. 

The Bible Dealing with such a book we may 

transplanted naturally expect that the result of its 

creates demand planting in non-Christian lands has 
for books. fruited in a new love and a new de- 

mand for Christian books. The tree of the gospel 
planted in the garden of human life canopies itself 
with leaves that are the healing of the nations. 



204 The Bible and Missions 

(1) By creating The Bible creates a hunger for books 
a literate by producing a generation of readers, 
constituency. The idea of putting the tool of literacy 
in the hands of common men is itself an offshoot of 
democracy which is the creation of Christianity. 
All the so-called democracies of ancient times were 
in truth democracies within the crassest class oli- 
garchies. The conception of one body politic, social, 
religious, for all mankind, is born of the teaching and 
lite of Jesus, and is yet to be fully recognized even in 
nations calling themselves Christian. It is then to 
be expected that only in nations where the common 
people are recognized as having some share and stake 
in government has the experiment of universal edu- 
cation been attempted. Japan, the one seeming ex- 
ception, is none in reality, since Japan transplanted 
the idea bodily from Christian countries. When 
Christian missionaries go to a new land, they carry 
the Bible as the vehicle for their message. They are 
forced to begin to teach people to read in order that 
the Bible may convey the message. This leads to 
the turning out from the Christian schools in every 
land multitudes of potential readers every year. 

(2) By preparation In setting Up this institution for 
of text-books. teaching the revolutionary art of 
reading, the missionaries have carried on other edu- 
cational enterprises. Reading, writing, and arith- 
metic, not to mention other subjects, have all had to 
be taught. This has meant in many cases the form- 
ing of the tools of education in process of setting up 
the schools. One effect of taking the Bible to 
non-Christian lands has been to plunge the mission- 
aries into the task of writing school text-books. It 



The Leaves of the Tree 205 

is safe to say that the bulk of the spellers, readers, 
arithmetics, geographies, and histories introduced 
into Asia during the nineteenth century were the 
work of missionaries or their pupils. To take but 
two illustrations out of a multitude: In Burma, in 
1913, one of the numerous editions of Stillman's 
Arithmetic was going through the press at Rangoon. 
So closely did this pioneer missionary of two genera- 
tions past fit his presentations and examples of 
arithmetical truth to Burmese life that no later 
arithmetic has been able to replace it in the schools 
of Burma. The School History of Egypt in use in 
Government schools was written by a Christian 
Egyptian woman, the first of the nation to receive a 
college degree in the Woman's Christian College of 
Cairo. 

(3) By creation The preparation or translation of text- 
ofnew books by the missionaries for their 

industries. Christian schools led to the creation 

of new industries. Sometimes rude printing presses 
and fonts of type were laboriously improvised by the 
missionaries, as in the case of John Williams in the 
South Seas or William Duncan among the Cree 
Indians. More often printing presses were imported 
and the natives taught to run them. The super- 
human efforts necessary to procure or manufacture 
proper type and get a press actually in operation 
are one of the romances of missions. 
Notable Notable missionary presses are the 

Mission Presses. Baptist Press at Rangoon, where the 
Bibles, Christian literature, and many of the educa- 
tional books for polyglot Burma have been printed 
for the last seventy-five years; the Methodist Episco- 



2o6 The Bible and Missions 

pal Press at Lucknow, with about two hundred em- 
ployees and an annual output of 74,600,000 pages; 
the Presbyterian Mission Press at Beirut, where the 
Bible for 200,000,000 Moslems and a large propor- 
tion of all the Arabic text-books of the world are 
printed. There are more than 160 mission presses 
in the different fields, scattered among the societies 
of all denominations. Some of them are busy little 
presses like that at Goom on the borders of Tibet, 
where the Scandinavian Alliance Mission is printing 
Bibles to smuggle into that closed land. Others are 
great business enterprises like the Presbyterian Press 
at Shanghai. It was a group of young Chinese 
Christians trained in this press who organized the 
Commercial Press, Limited, of Shanghai. Begin- 
ning in a small way, this publishing house is today 
the largest in all Asia. It is equipped with the most 
modern presses, imports paper stock from Austria, 
Sweden, England, and Japan, and prints two-thirds 
of the text-books of China. Best of all, this firm is 
thoroughly Christian, with standards in regard to 
sanitary conditions, wages, and welfare work that 
would put to shame all but the most advanced busi- 
ness concerns of the West. 

Work of To meet the growing demand for 

Tract Societies, books Created by the missionary 
schools, special societies have been organized, such 
as the American Tract Society and the Christian 
Literature Societies of India, China, and Japan. The 
work of the tract societies is a romance by itself. 
A tract is the outward and visible budding of a 
growing cause. Whether political, scientific, or re- 
ligious, all causes are alike in this, that they inevit- 



The Leaves of the Tree 207 

ably break into tracts — a sort of hand-clapping to 
attract attention. Neither should the tract be 
despised because of its ephemeral nature and humble 
form. Tracts are the true stuff out of which revolu- 
tions are built. The big books move too slowly to 
catch the crowd. Elaborate explanations prove 
exhausting to the attention of the unthinking. A 
tract catches the eye of the man as he runs, finds 
him as he rests by the way, speaks to him in the 
homely colloquial of his daily speech. The Re- 
ligious Tract Society of London and the American 
Tract Society stand in the same relation to the pro- 
duction and distribution of tracts as do the British 
and Foreign Bible Society and the American Bible 
Society to the circulation of the Bible. 
Christian The Christian Literature Societies' 

Literature Society aim is Other than that of the Tract 
of China. Society. Their field is education 

rather than propaganda. Recognizing the keen 
hunger for books on the part of the awakening na- 
tions of the East, they seek to meet it by making 
available the riches of the Christian literature of the 
West through translation and by stimulating the 
development of native literature. One of the most 
remarkable of these societies is the Christian Litera- 
ture Society of China. After the death of its founder. 
Dr. Alexander Williamson, in 1891, Rev. Timo- 
thy Richard, a Welsh Baptist missionary, became 
the Secretary of the Society. Under his dynamic 
leadership the organization became one of the might- 
iest powers in the transformation of China. Begin- 
ning with assets of only $1000, he drew about him a 
splendid body of Chinese and European editors and 



2o8 The Bible and Missions 

translators, accumulated property for the Society to 
the value of $225,000, and poured forth an ever in- 
creasing flood of life-giving books into the muddy 
stretches of the national life. He was known 
throughout China by the Chinese version of his 
given name, Teem-o-ti. The emperor, in recogni- 
tion of his great services, ennobled his an cestorsfor 
three generations (an attention peculiarly treasured 
by the Chinese), and made Dr. Richard himself a 
Mandarin with the button of the highest grade. 
Timothy Richard's ^^' Richard was one of the first to see 
great the Strategic importance of books in 

achievement. awakening the mighty Chinese nation 
from its sleep. He translated the word Christian 
in no narrow way, but in addition to books of devo- 
tion and Biblical exposition published works of the 
widest range of interest. A little of the scope of the 
Society's work may be understood by listing a few 
titles: International Law ^ T^he German Empire^ Sixty 
Years of ^ueen Victoria, Life of Luther, Biographical 
Sketches of the Presidents of the United States, Guizot's 
History of European Civilization, Tea Cultivation^ 
Science and Alcohol, 'The Romance of Medicine, His- 
tory of Western Ethics, Outlines of Astronomy , Polit- 
ical Economy, History of Socialism, Primer of Sani- 
tation, Physical Education, Training of Children. 
In all his provision for adults, the children were not 
forgotten, as witness the translation of Little Lord 
Fauntleroy, 

Christian books When the young emperor sent out 
for Kuang his eunuchs for books, he had to de- 

^®^' pend chiefly upon the Christian Lit- 

erature Society for those dealing with the history 



The Leaves of the Tree 209 

and civilization of Western nations. Among others 
he received Mackenzie's History of the Nineteenth 
Century. The Russian Ambassador was quite natu- 
rally shocked when he learned that the young em- 
peror was deeply impressed by the book. He warned 
the emperor of its dangerous quality, and thus suc- 
ceeded in bringing the book to the attention of one 
of the viceroys, who in turn was so impressed that he 
presented a copy to the viceroys of the seventeen 
other Chinese provinces. In presenting the book he 
urged them to read it, saying that a civilization that 
could make such an advance in one century was 
one of which China could not afford to be ignor- 
ant. 

Wide branching Through literally hundreds of similar 
topics of Chris- illustrations which might be given, 
tian literature. j^ jg clearly evident that forces liber- 
ated in the bringing of the Bible to China have been 
at the very heart of the momentous changes taking 
place in that country during the last quarter century. 
The number of distinctively religious books and 
pamphlets published by the Society is very great, 
and ranges from a translation of Hastings's Bible 
Dictionary to a series of large and attractive posters 
printed in red with the flag of the Republic repro- 
duced in colors. The posters deal with rehgion in 
relation to the State, Education, the Home. A Life 
of Christ, notes on the Sermon on the Mount, Church 
History, Object Lessons for Children, Studies in the 
New Testament, Christianity and Civil Government 
are a few of the wide-branching topics on which 
Chinese Christians desire to be informed. 



2IO The Bible and Missions 

Christian Not least important among the ac- 

periodicai tivities of the Society is the pubHca- 

hterature. ^j^j^ q£ periodical literature. The one 

magazine for women discusses topics so familiar to 
American women in their own similar magazines — 
home making, child training, child psychology, 
school sanitation, kindergarten games, etc., etc. The 
department of poetry contains translations from well- 
known English poems as well as original matter. 
Bible lessons, devotional pages, travel talks, sketches 
of famous women make up a magazine that is a boon 
to Chinese women, as it is the only publication of 
the sort in China. 

First Chinese The growing power and self-con- 
Christian sciousness of the Chinese Church were 

newspaper. shown in 1 91 2 in the establishment of 

the first Christian Daily Newspaper in China, Great 
Light Daily ^ edited by Mr. Leang Chi Sheng. 
First magazine The Christian Literature Society has 
for children. the further distinction of publishing 

Happy Childhood^ the only children's magazine in the 
Chinese language. That the magazine is appreciated 
is shown by the fact that its subscribers are found in 
all classes, in every province in China, and also in 
Hawaii, Malaysia, the Philippines, America, and in 
England, where there are Chinese children. 
Literary output of There is no non-Christian land where 
Japanese Chris- the output of Christian books is 
tians: translations, larger or more influential than in 
Japan. Japanese Christians are busily translating 
a multitude of useful books. Simpson's Fact of 
Christy Anderson's Man of Nazareth, J. R. Miller's 
Story of Josephy biographies of Moody and Judson, 



The Leaves of the Tree 211 

Fosdick's The Meaning of Prayer yTohtdi s My Religion ^ 
Gordon's ^uiet T!alks on Frayer^ Bowne's 'Theism^ 
Smiles's Self Help^ Miss Porter's Pollyanna^ and 
Wallace's Ben Hur are a few of those mentioned in 
the report of 191 7. 

Literary output of Japanese Christians are writing books 
Japanese Chris- of their own, too. Mr. Horiguchi 
tians: original wrote a volumc of Studies in the 
works. Minor Prophets, Mr. Kuranaga, Fifty 

Studies in the Gospel of John, Mr. Kamizawa, a Life 
of Christ, Col. Yamamuro of the Salvation Army, a 
Life of Christ in Common Speech. Sixty-one thou- 
sand copies of this author's 'The Gospel for the Com- 
mon People have been sold. There are books on the 
Holy Land, the Life of St. Paul, sermons, lectures, 
essays, stories for young people, books on Sunday 
School organization, and teaching, and devotional 
books. A notable one among the latter class was 
Under the Shadow of Thy Wings (to translate its 
Japanese title) by Miss Zako Aiko. The author is 
an invalid, suffering much in body but triumphant 
in soul. Her brief essays are described as 'prose 
poems' likely to become classics in their ministry of 
cheer to the suffering. Professor Tsunaj imaof Waseda 
University, after losing his faith, recovered it when 
he gained a new vision of God during a time of illness. 
His book The Experience of Seeing God has explained 
the meaning of faith to multitudes. 
Christian There are deep, Christward currents 

literature outside in Japan as in other countries which 
the Church. j.^j^ outside the Church. One evi- 

dence of this is found in the books written by those 
who are not avowed Christians. Tolstoi's writings 



212 The Bible and Missions 

have exerted a great influence in Japan through the 
translation of his complete works. There are Tol- 
stoi clubs among students and a magazine devoted 
to the discussion and interpretation of his writings. 
^^Resurrection has appeared everywhere in moving 
pictures/* says TheChristianMovementinJapan^K^igy 
"and has exerted an unquestioned influence for good 
among wide classes of society. The Prayer to God 
of the heroine, Katuscha, sung by thousands in 
Japan, is part of the story of Nebdorf's repentance 
and experience of Christ's resurrection." Another 
book mentioned is Go Go no Haru (The Spring of Five 
Times Five), a book by a young writer named Kawa- 
no, which has had a profound effect upon the student 
world. Although Kawano never entered a Christian 
church he bought a penny Testament which he read 
while a student at Waseda University. In his book 
which has sold by the tens of thousands he tells of the 
blessing he received from his little Testament, eu- 
logizes its power, and speaks of Christ and the Sermon 
on the Mount. 

Buddhist The influence of the Bible can be 

approaches. traced in books even further removed 

from organic Christianity than the above. Some of 
the leaders of new Buddhism frankly appropriate 
some of the leading ideas of Christianity. Idolatry 
is abolished and the movement leans towards Chris- 
tianity with no sense of antagonism. One group of 
Buddhist ascetics has taken the Lord's Prayer as 
its motto. Two recent books of essays are listed 
by ne Christian Movement in Japan^ 1919, as "es- 
sentially Christian," i.e., books that could not have 
been written apart from the impact of Bible ideals 



The Leaves of the Tree 213 

and teachings upon the soul of Japan. Cain and 
His Descent by Arishima and New Spring by Toku- 
tomi are the two books mentioned. The latter, 
which is a record of profoundly Christian experiences, 
passed through 104 editions in less than one year. 

The gospel in A touch of interest is added to the 
the daily press. story of the slow but sure penetra- 
tions of Christian ideals into Japan through the 
printed pages to read that one newspaper ran as a 
serial a translation of Mrs. Stowe^s A Minister's 
Wooing for the purpose of giving a picture of the 
religious life in New England of the long ago. A 
Tokyo newspaper ran the Life of Christ in serial form 
a few years ago; and an Osaka newspaper ran two 
prize novels as serials. Both were by Christian 
writers, one of them dealing with the power of prayer. 

Advertising ^^^ o^ the most hopeful developments 

Christianity has been the utilizing of the daily press 

in the for the spread of Christian truth by 

newspapers. means of paid advertising. The pro- 

ject was conceived by Rev. Albertus Pieters of Oita 
who began some years ago to explain the funda- 
mental teachings of Christianity in the daily press. 
Readers of his masterly advertisements were told 
that they could secure further literature by writing 
to him. They were also invited to ask questions. 
His experiment disclosed how far these newspa- 
pers circulated, as letters began to reach him from 
widely separated localities. A careful card index 
of inquirers was made and a systematic follow-up 
work of correspondence began. 



214 The Bible and Missions 

Result The results of this campaign of gospel 

of gospel advertising have been surprisingly 

advertising. g^^j^ -p^^ prefecture of Oita, in 

which Dr. Pieters has been demonstrating his method 
of gospel seed-sowing through the medium of the 
daily papers, has a population of 900,000. After 
several years of such cultivation the statement is 
boldly made that there is not a hamlet containing 
twenty houses in the entire prefecture, in which some- 
one does not know the outstanding facts of the gospel. 

"One Episcopal worker whose duties take him over large 
parts of Oita prefecture declares that he has no words to describe 
what this work has done, both in arousing interest among non- 
Christians and in nourishing the faith of scattered Christians. 
A pastor of the Reformed Church of over ten years* experience 
in the prefecture declares the change beyond imagining." 

Expansion Convinced that there are great possi- 

of newspaper bilities of usefulness in the enlarged 
advertising. ^g^ q£ ^.j^^ newspapers as a medium 

of spreading the gospel, Dr. Pieters has organized 
an Association for the Promotion of Newspaper 
Evangelism. He is showing that at far smaller ex- 
pense a larger number of people can be reached 
through the newspapers than through the distribu- 
tion of tracts. He proposes that the Christian bod- 
ies engaged in missionary work in Japan shall raise 
a fund of $250,000 to carry newspaper evangelism 
into every corner of the Empire. He suggests that 
Japanese Christians such as Mr. Kanamori, Col. 
Yamamuro, and Mr. Mitami be engaged to write, 
in the simple, stirring style which they command, 
the vital truths of the gospel. A fund like this, 
available each year, would carry the gospel within 



The Leaves of the Tree 215 

twenty years into the remotest corners of the empire. 
The good idea is spreading into other lands, is to be 
tried, it is said, by the China Continuation Com- 
mittee, by Mr. MacLeod in Formosa, and Dr. Zwem- 
er in Egypt. 

Publish Possibilities of tremendous good are 

glad tidings. Opened up. It was the Bible that 

bade us lift up our voices and cry aloud and tell out 
among the people the glorious news of the gospel. 
Too often the news has been whispered or droned or 
repeated lifelessly in a corner. The wonderful 
publicity program of the Government during the 
great war has proved that it is as easy to sell ideas 
to the people as to sell goods, if it is attempted in the 
right way, on a proper scale. Why is it not possible, 
in America, as well as in the Orient, to utilize the 
newspapers in merchandising Wisdom? Why could 
not the National Chamber of Commerce through a 
worthy campaign of advertising in Japanese news- 
papers sell America to the Japanese, — to use an ad- 
vertising term? The papers of Japan are flooded 
with malicious rumors about America's sinister de- 
signs on Japan: why not give them an advertising 
campaign of truth? 

The singing One of the loveliest legacies of the 

leaves. Book is the gift ofsong. Music there 

is in every land, but the soul of music has never 
found itself except under the culture of Christianity. 
The music of Greece, of India, of China remained 
primitive, plaintive, undeveloped. No religion ex- 
cept Christianity has ever been able so to develop 
personality as to bring out the hidden sublimities 
and marvelous possibilities that dwell in the soul of 



2i6 The Bible and Missions 

music. Wherever the Bible has gone the people 
have learned a new song. 

The missionary The missionary has always taken his 
and his hymn book with his Bible. The 

hymnal. gospel has literally sung its way 

around the world. Simple hymns like Safe in the 
Arms of Jesus, Jesus Loves me, this I know are im- 
perishably fixed in all earth's hundreds of languages. 
Some of our notable writers will be forgotten in a 
hundred years, but Fanny Crosby will go singing 
down the century. Hers was but a slender gift of 
song, but she placed it in the hands of Jesus and he 
blessed and broke and gave it to the nations. Mis- 
sionary after missionary has translated and written 
hymns by the score to make the first crude hymnal of 
the new-born churches of the Orient. Time would 
fail to speak of the Choice Arabic Hymns first pub- 
lished by Rev. E. R. Lewis, M.D., a professor in the 
Syrian Protestant College of Beirut; of the work of 
Pilkington and Mackay in writing hymns for dark 
Uganda, of Pastor Coillard's hymns beloved in Sesuto, 
of Mrs. Marling's hymns among the savage Fan 
folk of the West Coast. From the multitudinous 
islands of the Pacific we should hear the songs which 
are the gifts of missionaries long since singing the 
songs of the redeemed in Heaven. In the early days 
on blood-soaked Fiji the little children were taught 
by Rev. John Watsford to sing the gospel stories of 
the life of Christ before they ever learned to read. 
The martyr, James Chalmers, insured the spread of 
the gospel for which he died, by translating into the 
language of the savage men of New Guinea nearly 
two hundred hymns. 



The Leaves of the Tree 217 

Sales of The sales of hymn books have been 

hymn books. only second to those of the Bible. 

The Union Hymnal ^\ihYish.Qd in Japan in 1903 con- 
tained hundreds of choice hymns, both original and 
translated, and became at once one of the best selling 
books in Japan. These Christian hymns find their 
way into many non-Christian homes. They are 
adapted, words and all, for use in Buddhist Sunday- 
schools. 

**Buddha loves me, this I know, 
For the Shastras tell me so." 

Modern Buddhism creates no hymns; it patches up 
Christian hymns to suit its purposes. 
Hymn writers; No sooner do Christian converts 
Indian. learn to sing the songs of Zion than 

they begin to express their new found faith in hymns 
of their own. An increasing number of these hymns 
is to be found in the hymnals of the rising churches 
of the Orient. In India, for example, rhyming 
paraphrases of Bible stories and teachings are set 
to Indian tunes and chanted to enraptured audiences. 
An audience of Telugu farmers will listen half the 
night to the life of Joseph or of Paul expressed in 
primitive verse-form and set to one of the well- 
known chants in which they have been wont to hear 
the traditions of their race. An increasing use is 
being made of this form for securing the entrance and 
lodgment of Christian truth. Many Indian pastors 
and evangelists are proving to have a great gift in 
thus singing the gospel into the hearts of the people. 
Several hymns written by Indian Christians have 
found their way into our American hymnal. Nota- 
ble among these is In the Secret of His Presence by 



2i8 The Bible and Missions 

Ellen Lakshmi Goveh, a high-caste Hindu girl, and 

'Thou my Souly Forget no More by Krishna Pal, 
the first Indian convert baptized by William Carey. 

A notable There died recently Mr. N. V. Tilak 

hymn writer and of Ahmednagar, India, a notable 
evangelist. Christian, a man of rare poetic gifts 

whose hymns have entered into the imperishable 
treasury of the Marathi tongue. In his last will and 
testiment he made confession of his Christian faith, 
**None knows when he will have the call of God,'* 
he writes, "and none ought to be thinking of it un- 
necessarily. That experience I am never willing to 
call Death. It is the call of God. It is awakening 
into a new life. The thought of it never disheartened 
me. No trouble while dying, no trouble while living, 
is the privilege of a Christian, and through Christ 

1 enjoy it.'* 

Quality of his Mr. Tilak's hymns are full of the noble 
hymns. rhythm and sonorous cadences of the 

Marathi language. They are mystical, full of 
poetry, and breathe a passionate devotion to Jesus. 
Through his hymns Mr. Tilak has become a beloved 
leader among Marathi Christians everywhere. 

Much remaining While it is encouraging to study what 
to be done. j^^g \^^^^ ^\^^ effect of the introduction 

of the Bible in stimulating other forms of Christian 
literature it must not be forgotten that only a tiny 
beginning has been made. The call for the supply 
and the distribution of Christian literature is just 
beginning to be heard as one of the outstanding needs 
of the lands now awaking to new life under the im- 
pact of the gospel. Neither in quantity, in quahty. 



The Leaves of the Tree 219 

nor in subject matter is the literature now available 
satisfactory or sufficient. 

Literature Take for example the needs of the 

for the home. home. The two-thirds of the women 
of the world long denied education or books are 
beginning to go to school. Thousands of them are 
becoming literate each year. In most mission fields 
there is little except the Bible for them to read. In 
ail but two or three fields there is a dearth of books 
regarding the care of children, the work of home 
building. Christian biography, fiction, books of de- 
votion. The eloquent fact that in all China there is 
but one picture book for children makes a louder 
appeal for wholesome, homely, helpful books for the 
mother and the children than would pages of argu- 
ment. 

A Child's The strength of the appeal was shown 

^'^® recently when Mrs. MacGillivray of 

of Jesus. Shanghai was speaking about the 

need of children's books to an audience in Boston. 
She had described her visit to a book store in Toron- 
to during holiday season with its bewildering array of 
children's books, stories, nature books, fairy tales, 
poems, travel, Bible stories, books about science, 
books showing how to weave baskets, do carpentry, 
raise bees, make gardens, take care of pets, make 
candy and all sorts of delightful things. Then she 
thought how a Chinese mother would have no trou- 
ble at all in deciding which picture book to take, 
because there would be only one. When she had 
finished speaking she was asked what book she would 
choose above all others to make for Chinese children. 
Without hesitation she said a Child's Life of JesuSy 



220 The Bible and Missions 

illustrated. As soon as the meeting was over a lady 
hastened forward with her check book in hand, 
"It isn't necessary to pay for it now," said Mrs. 
MacGilHvray, "it will take several months to secure 
the Chinese writer and an artist who will draw the 
pictures." "I might die on the way home/' insisted 
the lady, "and I want the privilege of publishing 
that Life of Jesus for little children." The three 
hundred and fifty dollars which she paid compen- 
sated writer and artist and paid for a first edition of 
one thousand copies. The sale of the first edition 
will provide funds to issue the second edition. 
Jubilee books. This idea of providing books for 
children has been taken up by the Woman's Ameri- 
can Baptist Foreign Mission Society as part of its 
Jubilee Celebration. A fund has been set aside with 
which to publish one book or more in each of its ten 
fields. Wherever there is no Child's Life of Jesus 
the question of providing one will be taken up. 
Popularity Encouragement is to be found in the 

oi Happy response already made to this attempt 

Child ood. ^Q create a reading public among the 

young people. Mrs. MacGillivray reports that the 
little magazine Happy Childhood is eagerly looked 
for in every part of the world where there are Chinese 
people. The magazine was taken, for example, in 
a girl's school in Shansi. One number contained an 
account of a school for the deaf in Chefoo. This so 
interested the girls that they gave $3.00 (no small 
sum from their meagre funds) and sent it to the school 
for the deaf. In far away Vancouver a little Chinese 
girl read the story that Happy Childhood brought her 
of the Door of Hope in Shanghai. She promptly 



The Leaves of the Tree 221 

began to tell other children about the Door of Hope 
and to interest them. They organized a little sew- 
ing society and made several warm quilts which they 
sent at Christmas to the Door of Hope and to a 
Chinese hospital. 

Happy Mrs. MacGillivray told another 

Childhood in charming story about the little maga- 
e pa ace. zine. It seems that a missionary who 

was teaching the children of Yuan Shi Kai, the Presi- 
dent of China, took a copy of Happy Childhood with 
her one day on her visit to the palace. Several times 
it happened that she left a copy. One day one of 
the secondary wives in the palace called her aside 
and said, "Tell me about this Jesus of whom this 
paper speaks so often." As she told her of Jesus, 
the old scene was repeated when "they of Caesar's 
household" listened to the apostle who brought them 
the Good News. 

Importance of Considerations like the above reveal 
periodicals. the necessity of fostering periodical 

literature, not too bookish and intellectual, for 
women and children. The Women's Boards have 
made a tiny beginning to supply this need through 
the publication of several women's magazines. Few, 
if any, of them have made library grants to assure 
that the magazines for women and children shall be 
taken in the schools and provided freely in reading 
rooms. No better reward of diligence could be given 
than to make a pupil a subscriber for a good Chris- 
tian magazine. 

Need of CO- The business of publishing a maga- 

operation. zine is expensive. A poor, shabby, 

dull paper defeats its ends. A wide-awake, spiritu- 



222 The Bible and Missions 

ally stimulating child's paper has almost super- 
human powers for good. The beginning of co-opera- 
tion in which several Boards unite in the support 
of one magazine has already been seen in China in 
the publication of Happy Childhood, 
Call for The dearth of reading matter, the 

adequate program, eager response with which our first 
limited attempts to supply the need are met, the 
absolute necessity of cultivating the reading habit 
if a vigorous, broad-minded Christian community 
is to be developed, all point to the need of an ade- 
quate program of advance. All the great missionary 
societies are planning for advance. Old programs 
and standards are being discarded as outgrown and 
insufficient. It is necessary that the lack of books be 
taken into account. There are few signs that this 
problem is being faced in any but the most desultory 
way. Here and there a Board makes a grant. Now 
and then a missionary is set aside for literary work; 
but up to the present day no well-considered plan 
has been formulated and adopted for the whole field. 
The program Such a program means a large, a very 
expensive. large investment of money. If the 

people are too poor to buy books we must supply 
them; if they are too ignorant to desire books we must 
create the appetite. No self-supporting, self-propa- 
gating Protestant church can be created and main- 
tained without books. The strong Protestant na- 
tions are all reading nations. The strong Prot- 
estant denominations are all reading denominations. 
We are people of the Book, of many books. Having 
begun our missionary campaign, we must carry it 
through. More books, and better, are a prime 



The Leaves of the Tree 223 

necessity. Until the awakening peoples can create 
a sufficient literature for themselves they must re- 
ceive translations and adaptations of the most valiant 
and beautiful books that men have made. The 
torch which Greece and Rome and Israel passed 
on to Europe, and Europe in turn to America, must 
be passed to the Orient. 

Outstanding In formulating the enlarged program 

opportunities. for the new day there are to be con- 
1. Publicity. sidered at least two tremendous op- 

portunities. The one has already been briefly al- 
luded to — the opportunity to make non-Christian 
people acquainted with the main facts of the gospel 
through publicity in the daily press. The circula- 
tion of daily newspapers in the Orient is itself of com- 
paratively recent development. To take advantage 
of it for promoting the Kingdom on the lines so prac- 
tically demonstrated by Mr. Pieters in Oita prefec- 
ture requires a very large outlay of money. A com- 
mittee, after an exhaustive survey, estimated that 
adequate plans for newspaper publicity throughout 
the Japanese empire would necessitate an outlay of 
j^5oo,ooo annually for five years. If only Tokyo 
were taken as the organizing center a worthy, though 
incomplete, campaign could be undertaken for 
$100,000 annually. The report of this committee 
is fascinating reading. It may be obtained from the 
Interchurch World Movement under the title 
Seven Years of Newspaper Evangelism in Japan. 
Value of Such an undertaking, co-operatively 

Christian financed by the great Protestant 

publicity. Boards of Foreign Missions, not only 

in Japan, but in China, India, and the Near East, 



224 The Bible and Missions 

would have enormous capacity for good. It is not 
fanciful to dream such dreams in these days of wide 
open opportunity. 

2. Use of The second line of advance provi- 

phonetic Chinese dentially Opened is through the use 
script. Qf ^]^g recently invented phonetic 

characters for the printing of Chinese. Through 
this invention China advances by one leap from 
the position of the nation having a most archaic, 
cumbersome, and difficult system of writing the spoken 
word to that of the nation having a most advanced 
and scientific syllabary. Instead of a separate 
character to be memorized for each word in the 
language we have thirty-nine phonetic symbols 
based on the old character. By means of certain 
diacritical marks placed above or beneath the char- 
acters it is possible to indicate the different tones. 
Such are the simplicity and beauty of the system that 
an illiterate adult can learn to read in a month or 
six weeks. 

Advantage of It is difficult to overstate the impor- 
phonetic tance of the new system of writing to 

system. ^\^q future progress of the Chinese 

people. The old character system of recording the 
language was acquired with difficulty by the common 
people and was but sketchily retained by many of 
them. The difficulty of reading books containing 
unfamiliar terms was enormous even to the educated. 
The problems of setting type or adapting the type- 
writer and other modern tools of business to Chinese 
were all but insuperable. 



The Leaves of the Tree 225 

Overcoming The conservatism of the Chinese and 

Chinese their deep pride in the literary beau- 

conservatism, ^jgg q£ l-}^gjj. language have made all 
previous attempts to romanize or to reform their an- 
cient system of character writing abortive. The 
new system, because of its simplicity, its conformity 
to the traditional Chinese form, and the ease with 
which it is mastered, is rapidly growing in popu- 
larity. In Shansi, Governor Yen is enthusiastically 
pushing the new system in the hope of having the 
first literate province in China. Schools and colleges 
are falling in line, making the study of the new 
script a required topic. Students have been using 
their vacations for the purpose of teaching illiterates. 
Printing of One of the first necessities in getting 

text -books. the new script studied is the prepara- 

tion of text-books. Fortunately the right person 
was already fitted for the task. Miss S. J. 
Garland of the China Inland Mission had for 
years been engaged in working out an improved 
system of braille for the use of the blind. Her sys- 
tem was generally recognized as the best, and her 
studies for the blind proved of service in working 
out the phonetic system of writing for the seeing. 
Her experience and reputation as a linguist led to her 
being asked to come to Shanghai and superintend 
the preparation of the first readers in the new script. 
Her Board consented to release her. The first primer 
was already prepared when along came a truly stag- 
gering order from the governor of Shansi for 2,500,000 
primers. The order was divided among several 
printing firms in order to get it out in time. Other 
books are in process of preparation. 



226 The Bible and Missions 

The Bible The Gospels of Luke and Mark have 

in the already been translated from the 

new script. Mandarin to the new phonetic char- 

acters. The American Bible Society has made a 
grant to cover the cost of printing. The use of the 
phonetic script makes it possible to put the Bible in 
the hands of the common people and quickly to 
teach them to read it for themselves. The diffusion 
of Christian truth thus made practicable may quick- 
en the pace of China's evangelization by generations. 
Importance of The importance of this invention is 
new script. yet but dimly realized. Not forty 

millions out of China's four hundred millions can 
read. The task of teaching them to read has been 
reduced from a matter of years to a matter of weeks. 
Such an emancipation as occurred with the rise of 
vernacular literature in Europe is bound to occur in 
China. The old classic writing and literature will 
never be displaced but will assume the place in a 
liberal education that the Latin and Greek classics 
have held in the Western world, 
opportunity The Church holds the key to this 

of the Church. most wonderful door of opportunity. 
The Protestant Church already has 125,000 literates 
to 188,000 illiterates. These reading Christians are 
for the first time able to teach their fellow villagers 
to read and to place in their hands Christian teach- 
ings in this new everyday transcript of their everyday 
speech. This little army of literates is, for the most 
part, drawn from the common people, China's vast 
illiterate population. They are scattered through 
the villages. They are anxious to communicate the 
faith. What happened in Korea through the medi- 



The Leaves of the Tree 227 

um of Korea's easy phonetic script may happen in 
China; Christians may become people of the Book. 
America's During these days of the corruption 

contribution. and weakness of the Chinese govern- 
ment Christian America may work a mighty work for 
China and for the Kingdom of God. It is in the 
power of American Christians to see that the first 
school books in the new script are Christian in back- 
ground and viewpoint. We can rapidly put into 
phonetic characters the best Christian literature 
already available in Mandarin. We can provide 
and train a small army of teachers so that every 
Christian church shall become a recruiting station 
for the new learning. All this means money, but 
could money ever count for more? The Federation 
of Women's Boards has already responded, through 
its standing Committee on Christian Literature for 
Oriental Women and Children, by a small grant of 
$1000. This must be followed up by grants from 
individual Boards, by the setting apart of mission- 
aries for this work, and by individual contributions 
in large amounts. What ^100,000, wisely expended, 
could do in assuring that the first contact with books 
should be Christian, it is difficult to overstate. The 
expenditure is not recurring. The art once taught 
will lift China from illiteracy to literacy. The 
people once reading will pay for their own books. 
China's age-long veneration for the printed page 
makes it particularly easy to use books in the inter- 
pretation of the Christian message, once the common 
people have access to books. The forces of evil will 
not be slow to seize such an opening. It is safe to 
predict that within ten years the worst and most 



228 The Bible and Missions 

destructive books of America and Europe will be 
purchasable in the new script. It is for Christians 
to show equal enterprise in making available the life- 
giving books of our Christian civilization. 
In conclusion. We have traveled as in an airplane 
over a wide stretching country. We have beheld 
the lofty Himalayas of the Bible lifting their stainless 
summits across the path of the centuries. From 
their heights we have seen what rivers of the water 
of life take their rise to run softly far below through 
blossoming orchards and green meadows! We have 
traced their course through arid deserts which they 
have made to yield harvests for the hunger of the 
world. Showers of blessing condensed upon the 
mountains have revived distant plains. We have 
seen men climbing the sides of the illimitable Ranges 
of Scripture and as they climbed their faces have 
lightened and from the summits they have beheld 
the land that is very far off and the glory of God. 
From our brief study we have risen strengthened 
and calm. It is man's book, this Book of God. In 
its hand there are treasures for all mankind; in its 
heart a living message from the living God. To 
follow its teachings, to extend its influence, to preach 
its gospel, to make known its Saviour, crucified and 
risen again, is the deepest joy and the supremest 
privilege of the Christian. In the humble hope that 
this study, simple and inadequate as it is, may 
strengthen and deepen the faith of those who 
follow it, this little book is written. If it shall 
lead one person to devote himself whole-heartedly 
to make the Bible known to those who know it not, 
the writer will be glad and grateful. 



A BRIEF READING LIST 

CHAPTER I. 

Missions in the Plan of the Ages, Carver (Revell). 

A Tour of the Missions, Strong (Griffith & Rowland Press). 
Chapters XV, XVI, XVII. 

ifhe Hebrew Bible and the Israelitish Nation. (Centennial 
Pamphlet, see book list, Chapter IV.) 

Winning the World for Christ, Lambuth (Revell, 191 5). Lec- 
tures I and II. 

Christian Epoch Makers, Vedder (Griffith & Rowland Press, 
Philadelphia). Chapter I, The Philosophy of Christian Missions. 

I'he Bible a Missionary Book, Horton (1908) (The Pilgrim 
Press). Chapters III-VI. 

CHAPTER II. 

How Europe Was Won for Christianity, Stubbs (Revell). 
Chapters I, II. 

Bible Reading in the Early Church, Harnack (Putnam, 191 2). 

Outlines of Missionary History, Mason (Doran, 191 2). Chap- 
ter II. 

'J'wo 'Thousand Years of Missions before Carey, Barnes (Chris- 
tian Culture Press, Chicago, 1900). Chapters I-III. 

New Testament Studies in Missions, Beach (Student Volunteer 
Movement, 1900). 

Winning the World for Christ, Lambuth (Revell) . Lecture VI. 

Christian Epoch Makers, Vedder (Griffith & Rowland Press). 
Chapter II. 

The Bible a Missionary Book, Horton (Pilgrim Press). Chap- 
ters I, II. 

Christianity and Civilization, Church (Macmillan, 1914). 

CHAPTER III. 

The Bible in Many Lands, Harris (Carey Press, London). 

The Book and Its Travels, Harris (Carey Press, London), for 
boys and girls. 

The Conversion of India, Smith (Revell). 

Missionary Programs and Incidents, Trull (Second Series); 
pp. 117, 118, 124, 125, 130. Missionary Education Movement. 

Romance of Missionary Heroism, Lambert (London, 1909). 
Chapter XIV. 



230 The Bible and Missions 

The Soul of Indiay Howells (London, 1913). Pp. 562-567. 

How Europe Was Won for Christianity , Stubbs (Revell). 

Islam^A Challenge to Faith jZyftmQV\ pp. 164,210,215 (Student 
Volunteer Movement). 

The Steep Ascent y Entwistle (Revell). Chapter VIII. 

The Influence of the Bible on Civilization^ von Dobschiitz 
(Scribner, 19 14). Chapters III, VI, and illustrations of early- 
translations of the Bible. 

The Story of the L. M. S., Home (London; Simpkin, Marshall, 
& Co., 1904). Chapters V, VII. 

Two Thousand Years of Missions before Carey ^ Barnes. Illus- 
trations of Nestorian Tablet, p. 108. 

Christian Epoch Makers , Vedder. 

China Mission Year Book (1913) (Missionary Education Move- 
ment, New York). 

Bible in the British Museum, article in London Quarterly Review^ 
1894, vol. 178, pp. 157-184. 

Latin Translation of the Bible, article in The Churchman, 1891, 
vol. 16, pp. 90-98. 

Theology of Civilization, Dale (Crowell, 1899). 

Scotland's Influence on Civilization, L. J. Halsey (Pres. Bd. of 
Pub.). 

History of European Morals, Lecky (London). 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Christian Crusade for World Democracy, Taylor and Luc- 
cock (Methodist Book Concern). 

The Story of the Bible Society, Canton (London, 1904). 

All about Japan, Belle Brain, pp. 159-181. (Revell.) 

Bible Society Centenary Pamphlets. Ten pamphlets issued by 
the British and Foreign Bible Society, 1904, 146 Queen Victoria 
St., London, E.C. 

These pamphlets are valuable in Chapters III-V. 

A Children's History of the Bible Society y Canton (Murray, 
London). 

Centennial Pamphlets (American Bible Society, 1916). 

Single pamphlets, postpaid, 5 cents; in quantities of ten or 
more, 3 cents each. Order, American Bible Society, Astor 
Place, New York, N. Y. 



A Brief Reading List 231 

In the Vulgar 'Tongue^ Bible House, Queen Victoria St. (Lon- 
don, 1 9 14). 

'The Modern Call of Missions y Dennis (Revell, 1913). Chap- 
ters I-IV. 

The Cross in Japan, Hagin (Revell, 1914). Pp. 163-173. 

Missionary Review of the World, August, 19 19. The Bible 
and the World's Future, Ritson. 

The World Outlook, March, 191 8, The World's Best Seller. 

CHAPTER V. 

The New Horoscope of Missions, Dennis (Revell). Lectures 
II, III. 

Ministers of Mercy, Franklin (Missionary Education Move- 
ment). 

Epoch Makers of Modern Missions, McLean (Revell). 

Missionary Programs and Incidents (Second Series), Trull 
(Missionary Education Movement). 

African Missionary Heroes and Heroines, Kimm (Macmillan, 
1917). Fine Maps. 

The Story of the American Board, Strong (The Pilgrim Press). 
Pp. 272, 381. 

Koreaf or Christ, Davis (London,22 Paternoster Row,E.C.).P.39. 

Daybreak in the Dark Continent, Naylor (Missionary Education 
Movement). Pp. 223-233. 

Human Progress through Missions, Barton (Revell, 191 2). 

Centennial Pamphlets, see book list. Chapter IV. 
Evolution of the Use of the Bible in Europe, Kuyper. 
The Bible, the Book of Mankind, Warfield. 

Lincoln's Use of the Bible, Jackson (Abingdon Press). 

The Bible and Civilization, von Dobschiitz (Scribner). Chap- 
ters IV, V. 

World Facts and America's Responsibility, Patton (Association 
Press, 1919). Chapters I-III. 

Gesta Christi, Brace (Armstrong, 1903). 

The Christian Movement in Japan (18 14), pp. 164- 171. (Mis- 
sionary Education Movement, New York.) 

India's Silent Revolution, Fisher (Macmillan, 191 9). Chap- 
ters IV, VI. 

The Greatest English Classic, McAfee (Harper, 191 2). Chap- 
ters V, VI. 



232 The Bible and Missions 

Is the World Growing Better? Snowdon (Macmillan, 191 9). 
Chapter IX, The Bible and Progress. 

Civilization of Christendom, Bosanquet (Macmillan). 

Influence of Christianity upon Social and Political Ideas (Mil- 
waukee, Young Churchman y 1912). 

Christianity and Civilization^ Church (Macmillan, 1914). 

Christ or Chaos ^ Watson (Pilgrim Press). 

CHAPTER VI. 

Korea for Christ, Davis (London, 22 Paternoster Row, E.C.). 
See Chapter IX, Whang, the Blind Sorcerer. 

The Bible and Civilization, von Dobschiitz (Scribners). Chap- 
ter VII. 

Christian Movement in Japan (Missionary Education Move- 
ment, New York). 

See Volumes from 1914-1919 for Annual Review of Christian 

Literature. 
See 1917, part IX, for Women's Movement, Industrial Con- 
ditions, Social Evil, Labor Movement. 
See 1913, Chapter XXX on Newspaper Evangelism. 

I'he Modern Call of Missions, Dennis (Revell, 1913). Chap- 
ter X, The Hymnody of Modern Missions. 

Contrasts in Social Progress, Tenney (Rumford Press, Concord, 
N.H., 1914). 

China Mission Year Book (ipij) (Missionary Education Move- 
ment, New York). Pp. 308-313, 352-361. 

The Literary Primacy of the Bible, Eckman (Methodist Book 
Concern, 1915)- Chapters I and IV. 

The Greatest English Classic, McAfee (Harper, 191 2). Chap- 
ter IV. 

Christian Literature in the Mission Field, Ritson (Edinborough, 
I Charlotte Square, 1910). 

Worldwide Sunday-school Work. Report of Zurich Conven- 
tion, 1 9 13 (Pub. World Sunday-school Association, Metropohtan 
Tower, New York). 

Seven Years of Newspaper Evangelism in Japan, by Albertus 
Pieters, Oita, Japan. 



INDEX 



Abyssinian version, 99 

Acts, 76, 83, 84, 88-9 

Adams, John Quincy, quoted, 173 

Advertising Christianity, 213-5 

Africa, Bible in, 13 1-2 

African opinion of Bible, 180-1 

Alphabet, 121-2, 134-5, 224-6 

America, opportunity of, 227-8 

American Bible Society, organiza- 
tion, 149-150; 160,193-4 

Amos, the gospel in, ;i;^ 

Aneityum converted, 125 

Angel of the presence, 24 

Anglo-Saxons, Christianity not 
I)roperty of, 6$ 

Aniwa, 126-7 

Apocalypse, missionary message, 
89-93; social implications, 91-3 

Arabic, sacred language, 136 

Armenian version, 97 

Arts, the Bible and the, 169-70 

Babylon, fate of, foretold, 168-9 

Base line of gospel, 74-5 

Bible, missionary's book, 7; mis- 
sionary in essence and sub- 
stance, 8-13; topics, 8; style, 
8-9; long life, 9-10; cosmogony 
simple, 9-10; psychology age- 
less, lo-i; social passion, 11-2; 
as literature, 12; character of 
God, 12-3; Septuagint, 14, 96; 
missionary in teachings, 14; 
plan of the ages, 14-6; God's 
search for man, 16-7; transla- 
tion, 96-138; earliest versions, 
96-7; among early Christians, 
97-100; Vulgate, IOI-2; of _U1- 
filas, the Goth, 101-3; English, 
103-4; Burmese version, 11 2; 
Chinese versions, 113-6; Japa- 
nese versions, 11 6-7; floating on 
the water, 118; in Korea, 121-4; 
among islanders, 124-6; in Rara- 
tonga, 126; in Aniwa, 126-7; 



in Savage Island and New 
Guinea, 127-8; in Madagas- 
car, 128-31; in Africa, 13 1-2; 
Eliot's, for the Indians, 132; 
search for by Nez-Perces In- 
dians, 132-3; Dakota, 134; Na- 
vaho, 134; Cherokee, 134-5; 
versions for Moslems, 136-7; 
the travels of the, I41-165; 
scarce and expensive in 1800, 
141-2; democratized by educa- 
tion and invention, I42; Welsh 
get their, 146; in Great Britain, 
1 46-7; recognized by founders 
of our Republic, 150-1; sale of, 
152-4; distribution by colpor- 
ters, 154-8; finds Hindu /akir^ 
159-60; practical pointers, 164- 
5; influence on civilization, 167- 
195; has message to nations, 
167-9; modern civilization 
founded on, 169; and the arts, 
169-70; and law, 170-2; ideals 
of, 172; and Constitution of 
U. S., 172-3; testimony of 
great men, 173-4; and music, 
174; and church ordinances and 
festivals, 175; influence on non- 
Christian nations, 176; and 
India, 176-9; Uganda's trans- 
formation, 179-80; an African 
opinion, 180-1; Hottentot opin- 
ion, 181; and the Maoris, 18 1-2; 
Darwin on, in Tahiti, 182-3; 
in Pacific Islands, 183-4; in 
Korea, 185; Japan's debt, 186- 
8; in China, 188-95; going back 
home, 195; a book-making, 198- 
228; permeates literature, 200- 
2; influence of, can not be blot- 
ted out, 202-3; transplanted 
creates demand for books, 203- 
6; see New Testament, Old 
Testament 
Bible reading, 97-9, 103, 176-7 



234 



The Bible and Missions 



Bible schools, I46 
Bible societies, rise of, 141; and 
Mary Jones, 142-7; on the con- 
tinent, I47; in Russia, 147-8; 
in Scotland, 148; in America, 
1 48-51; characteristics of, 151- 
2; value, in missionary enter- 
prise, 152; ministry to the sol- 
diers, 160-4; contributions to 
fund, 1 61-2; approval of mili- 
tary leaders, 162-3; financial 
support, 165 
Bible translation, 96; best adapted 
to, 104; in the last century, 105; 
compared with other books, 105; 
essential to missionary progress, 
105-6; difficulties of, 106-8; en- 
larging a people's soul, 108; 
difficulties in the translator's 
heart, 108; benefits of, 108-10; 
searching for a name for God, 
127-8; a superb achievement, 
137-8; strategy of, 138; aided 
by Bible societies, 152 
Blessing, 19, 20 
Book, the travels of the, 141-1 65; 

Bible a book-making, 198-228 
Books, 198-9, 203-6, 220, 222-3 
Briggs, Governor, quoted, 172 
British and Foreign Bible Society, 

142-7, 148-9, 152, 160 
Brotherhood of Man, 57-58 
Buddhist approaches, 212-3 
Burma, Judson's sufferings, 1 1 1-2 
Burmese version, 112 

Carey, William, 109, iio-ii 
Carlyle quoted, 104 
Carver quoted, 20-1 
Caste, loosening of, 177-8 
Chalmers, James, quoted, 183-4 
Charter, missionary's great, 80 
Children, 98-9, 210 
Chinese alphabet, 224-6, 226 
Chinese Christian newspaper, 210 
Chinese conservatism, 225 
Chinese government asks Chris- 
tians to pray, 194-5 
Chinese magazine for children, 210 



Chinese philanthropist, 158-9,191 
Chinese text-books, printing, 225 
Chinese versions, 11 3-1 16 
China, Japanese Bible made in, 
1 1 6-7; Bible influence in open- 
ing, 188-9; services of American 
missionaries, 189; Christian di- 
plomacy in, 189-90; Bible in 
imperial palace, 190-1; reforms 
in, 190-1; Christian education 
in, 191-3; officials cable Am. 
Bible Soc, 193-4; Christians 
asked to pray for, 194-5; Chris- 
tian Literature Society of, 207- 
10; opportunity of Christian 
America in, 227-8 
Choate, Hon. Joseph H., quoted, 

Christ a failure, if missions fail, 
37-8; message of the Father, 
56-9; new way to Father, 59-60; 
absoluteness of claims, 59-60; 
riches of God in, 60; message of 
Kingdom, 61; message of, to 
John, 66; longing for triumph 
of, 70; triumphant kingdom, 91; 
in a Korean prison, 158 

Christendom, output of books, 
198^ 

Christian diplomacy, 189^0 

Christian education in China, 191-3 

Christian literature,, topics of, 209; 
outside the church, 21 1-2; 
Buddhist approaches, 212-3; 
more needed, 218-9; for the 
home, 219; child's life of Jesus, 
219-20; jubilee books, 220; pro- 
gram for publication of, needed, 
111-2; see Literature, Publicity 

Christian Literature Society of 
China, 207-10 

Christian periodical literature, 
210; see Publicity 

Christian publicity, 213-5; ^23~4; 
see Publicity 

Christian sonshlp, privileges of, 60 

Christians, early, use of Bible, 
97-100; gifts from Japanese, 
157-8; duty of, towards Bible, 



Index 



^^3^ 



165; opportunity of American, 
in China, 227-8 

Christianity not property of Anglo- 
Saxons, 65; whole population of 
an island converted, 125; in 
Madagascar, 128-31; expan- 
sion of, depends upon Bible 
translation, 137-8; and prison 
reform in Japan, 1 87; and reform 
in China, 190-1; develops a 
book-reading public, 199-200; 
English literature interprets, to 
Japan, 202; Buddhist approach- 
es to, 212-3; advertising, in 
newspapers, 213-5; expansion 
of, through music, 215-8 

Civilization, 91-2, 167-195, 169 

Church, will the, fail? 22-3; may 
fail, 23; replaces Kingdom, 61; 
preaching, teaching, 80; com- 
promising, and smooth sailing, 
84-5; Christian literature out- 
side of the, 21 1-2; opportunity 
of, 226-8 

Church Fathers on Bible reading, 

97-9 
Colporters, 154, 154-6, 156,156-8 
Commission, great, 78, 81-2; first 

worldwide, 80 
Conservatism and Bible societies, 

144; overcoming Chinese, 225 
Constitution of U. S. and the 

Bible, 172-3 
Continent, Bible societies on, 

147-8 
Coptic version, 97, 99 
Cosmogonies, impossible, 9-10 
Covenant, messages of, 43-44; 

new, rooted in the old, 54-5 

Daniel, 46, 46-7, 47-8 
Darwin, Charles, quoted, 182-3 
Day of God, hastening, 70 
Dictionaries compiled by mission- 
aries, 109-10, I 12-3, 119-20, 
125,131 

Early Church, lay ministry, 85-6; 
women workers, 86; spirit of, 



86-7; missionary power, 88-9 
Earth, new, men co-operating for, 

92-3. 
Education and the Bible, 142 
Edward the Conqueror quoted, 

171-2 
English law, Bible in, 171 
Ethiopic version, 97, 99 
Ethnic religions, 9-13 
Evangelization of world, 71 
Exploration: Oregon trail, 133-4 
Ezekiel, gospel of, for individual, 

39-40; hireling shepherd, 40-1; 

healing waters, 41 

"Faith of the Lord Jesus," 77 
Father, Christ's message of, 56-9; 

new way to, 59-60 
Fatherhood of God, 57-9 
Festivals, church, and Bible, 175 
Fields white for harvest, 72-3 
Finance, missionary, 85 
Foch, General, quoted, 162 
Force can not usher in Kingdom,63 
Foreigner in Solomon's prayer, 25 
Forgiveness proclaimed to all 

nations, 81 
Fraternal spirit of Early Church, 

86-7; today, 87-8 
Free, Bible sets men, 130-1 
Froude quoted, 173-4 
Furnivall, Dr., quoted, 201 

Gselic version, 146 

Galilee, Jesus appears in, 77-8 

Garibaldi quoted, 174 

Geddie, John, 125 

Germany and Kingdom, 64 

Gibbon quoted, 102 

Gilbert Islands, Bible in, 124-5 

Gladstone quoted, 174 

God, character of, revealed in 
Bible, 12-3; in ethnic religions, 
13; the great Person, 18; re- 
vealed in Psalms, 29; Isaiah 
claims world for, 2>^\ name 
revered among nations, 44-6; 
Jonah runs away from, 49; pur- 
pose of, in Nineveh, 49-50; 



^3^ 



The Bible and Missions 



irony of, 50; overall and in all, 
57; Fatherhood for all mankind, 
57-9; riches of, in Christ, 60; 
hastening Day of, 70; men co- 
operating with, 92-3; searching 
for a name for, 127-8; has a will 
for the nations, 169 
Goethe quoted, 7, 198 
Good, life chief, 69 
Gospel will not fail, 23; in Amos, 
23; Hosea's, of the love of God, 
33-4; glorious promise of, 40-1 ; 
in the arms of the Law, $5; 
base line for, 74-5; universal, 
85; giving money part of preach- 
ing, 85; in daily press, 213; ad- 
vertising, 213-5 
Gospels, missionary message, 82 
Gothic version, 102-3 
Grant, President U. S., quoted, 167 
Greek Church, translations, 99 
Greeley, Horace, quoted, 173 
Great Britain, Bible in 146-7 
Great commission, 78, 81-2 
Giitzlaff, Dr. K. F. A., 115, 11 6-7 

Habakkuk, message of, 42-3 

Haggai, message of, 41 

Haig, Field Marshal, quoted, 162 

Hall, Dr. G. Stanley, quoted, 174 

Hamlin, Cyrus, 168-9 

Happy Childhood^ 210; popularity, 

220; in a palace, 221; 222 
Harnack on use of Bible, 97-9 
Harrington, Dr. C. K., quoted, 120 
Harvest, fields white for, 72-3 
Healing waters, 41 
Heathen, speaking peace to, 41 
Hebrew hopes, noblest, 62 
Heroism, summons to Christian, 84 
Hindu /«^/r, Bible finds, 156-60 
Hireling shepherd, 40-1 
Historical books, 24-6 
Hogg quoted, 57 
Home, literature for the, 219 
Horton quoted, 27, 28, 30 
Hosea, gospel of, 33-4 
Hottentot opinion of Bible, 181 
Hsii, Kuang, Christian books for, 

208-9 



Humanity pictured in Bible, lo-i 
Hymn books, 216-7 
Hymn writers, 216-8 

India, influence of Bible, 176-9; 

see South India 
Indian invents an alphabet, 134-5 
Indians, Eliot's Bible, 132; Nez- 

Perces, search for Bible, 132-3; 

Bibles for, 134; twenty-third 

Psalm for, 135-6 
Individual, Ezekiel's gospel for, 

39-49 

Industries, new, and demand for 
text-books, 205 

Invention and the Bible, 142 

Isaiah, circumstances of ministry, 
^S'^'-, convictions underlying 
gospel, 2G\ claims world for God, 
36-7; challenge for today, 37; 
vision of suffering servant, 38 

Islanders, Bible among, 124-6 

Israel, 20-2 

Japan, first Protestant missiona- 
ries in, 1 17-8; debt to Bible, 
186-8; music in, 186; status of 
woman, 186-7; prison reform, 
187; English literature inter- 
prets Christianity to, 202 
Japanese, Tolstoi's works in, 21 1-2 
Japanese Christians influential, 

187-8; literary output, 210-1 
Japanese converts, early, 11 8-9 
Japanese prisons, N. T. in, 156-8 
Japanese versions, 11 6-7, 119-20 
Jaschke, Rev. H. A., no 
Jeremiah, 38-9 
Jerusalem, vision of new, 92 
Jesus nourished soul on Psalms, 
30; experience of, prefigured in 
Psalms, 31; universality of mis- 
sion, 55-6; all nations cluster 
about, SS~^'-> two centers of 
thought, 56-9; proclaims King- 
dom, 62\ defines Kingdom and 
reveals how to attain it, G2~S'i 
enraged Jews, 6^\ explains 
parables, 68-9; a missionary, 71; 
talk with Samaritan woman, 



Index 



237 



72; chooses missionaries, 73-4; 
mission strategy, 75; missionary 
commands, 75-6; faith of, 77; 
command after resurrection, 
77-9; Child's life ofy 219-20 

Jewish exiles, 45 

Jews, orthodox, 26, 6^ 

Job, missionary purpose in, 27 

Joel, message of, 48 

John sees plan, 15; Christ's mes- 
sage to, 66 

Jonah, the missionary, 48-9; text 
for prophecy, 49; runs away 
from God, 49; God's purpose in 
Nineveh, 49-50; irony of God, 

Jones, Rev. David, 128 
Jones, Mary, 142-3 
Jubilee books, 220 
Judson, Adoniram, 110-2 

Kingdom, the prophets upon, 
1 1-2; Micah foretells coming, 
34-5; Christ's message of, 61; 
replaced by church, 61; not a 
new idea, 61-2; how under- 
stood, 62-3; Jesus proclaims, 
63; nature of, 62\ how attained, 
63-5; Germany and the, 64; 
meekness and the, 64; not a 
national religion, 64-5; need 
not tarry, 66-7; triumph of, 
delayed, 67; parables of the, 
67-70; Christ's triumphant, 91; 
new Jerusalem, 92-3 

Korea, 121, 123-4, 185, 188 

Korean Bible, 122-3, i^4 

Korean prison, Christ in, 158 

Korean script, 121-2 

Laity, use of Bible, 97 

Language in Africa, 131; see 
Tongue 

Latin version, 97 

Law, missionary message, 17-22; 
in prophetic note, 23-4; God's 
calling outside, 25-6; Gospel in 
the arms of, 55; Bible and, 170- 
2; evils entrenched in, 172 



'League of Pity,* first, 74 

Leaves of the Tree, 198-228 

Lessing quoted, 93 

Lexicography, debt of, to mission- 
aries, 109-10; see Dictionaries 

Life, chief good of, 69 

Lights that failed, 22 

Lincoln, Abraham, quoted, 163 

Literary output of Japanese Chris- 
tians, 210-1 

Literate constituency, Christian- 
ity develops, 199-200; Bible 
creates, 204 

Literature, Bible as, 12; permeated 
by Bible, 200-2; see Christian 
literature 

Livingstone, David, 79, 180-1 

Luke, first worldwide commission, 
8a-i 

McAfee, quoted, 175, 198 
MacGillivray, Mrs., 219-20 
Mackenzie, Jean, quoted, 180 
Madagascar, Christianity in, 128- 

31 . . 

Pvlagazine, Chinese, for children, 

210; Happy Childhood, 220-1; 

see Publicity 
Malachi, 43-4, 44-6 
Man, God's search for, 16-7; 

Israel trustee for, 20-2; every, 

in his own tongue, 93-138; 

set free by Bible, 130-1 
Mankind of one blood, 19; Psalms 

hymnal of, 27-8; Isaiah per- 
ceived unity of, ^^ 
Maoris and the Bible, 18 1-2 
Marshall, Vice-President Thos. R., 

quoted, 162 
Materialism, 18 
Materialistic civilization, 91-2 
Meekness, might of, 64 
Messianic kingdom, vision of, in 

Psalms, 29-30; Daniel upon 

hope of, 47-8 
Micah foretells coming kingdom, 

34-5; true religion, 2S 
Milton quoted, 93 
Ministry, enlarging circles of, 74; 

lay, in Early Church, 85 



238 



The Bible and Missions 



Missionaries, Jesus chooses, 73-4; 

contributions to knowledge, 

108-10; first Protestant, in 

Japan, 11 7-8; services of, to 

Pacific Islanders, 183-4; and 

hymns, 216-8 
Missionary, Bible, in teachings, 

14; Jesus a, 71; great charter of, 

80^1 
Missionary commands of Jesus, 

75-6; in Acts, 76; backed by 

power, 78-9 
Missionary conceptions common 

to the prophets, 32 
Missionary enterprise, value of 

Bible in, 152 
Missionary finance, emergence of. 

Missionary message of Old Testa- 
ment, 5-51; in the Law, 17-22; 
prophetic note in, 23-4; of his- 
torical books, 24-6; of poetical 
books, 26-31; of prophets, 31- 
51; of the New Testament, 52- 
93; of Gospels, 82; of N. T. out- 
side the Gospels, 83; of Apoca- 
lypse, 88-93 
Missionary program, 79-80 
Missionary progress, 105-6 
Missionary spirit of Early Church, 

86-7; today, 87-8 
Missionary study of Acts, 88-9 
Mission, first Pfotestant west of 

Rocky Mts., 133-4 
Missions, text-book of, 7-13; fail- 
ure of Church, 22-3; if, fail, 
Christ a failure, 37-8; four 
zones of, 77; Acts: text book of, 
83; Syrian, loi; stormy times 
no bar to, 144 
Mission presses, notable, 205-6 
Mission strategy, 75; of Acts, 84 
Mofl^att quoted, 121-2 
Money, giving, 85 
Morrison, Robert, no, 11 2-5 
Moslems, versions for, 136-7 
Music and the Bible, 174; in Ja- 
pan, 186; an aid to Christianity, 
215-8 



National sins, 167-9 

Nations, all, cluster about Jesus, 
S5-6; Bible has message to, 
167-9; non-Christian, influence 
of Bible, 176; Oriental, receiving 
the Bible, 195 

Nestorian Tablet, loo-i 

New, from old to, 54 

New day, program for, 224-8 

New Guinea, Bible in, 127-8 

New Jerusalem, vision of, 92 

New Testament, missionary mes- 
sage of, 52-93; rooted in the 
Old, 54-5; missionary message 
of, outside the Gospels, 83; in 
Japanese prisons, 156-8; in 
Korean prison, 158; given by 
Chinese philanthropist, 158-9; 
see Old Testament, Bible 

Newspaper evangelism, see Pub- 
licity 

Newspaper, first Chinese Chris- 
dan, 210; see Publicity 

Nineveh, God's purpose in, 49-50; 
we have our, ^o 

Nott, Henry, 125-6 

Novels, sale of, 153 

Obedience and Kingdom, 69 
O'Brien, Fighting Pat, quoted, 163 
Okuma, Count, quoted, 186 
Old, from, to new, 54 
Old Testament, missionary mes- 
sage of, 5-51; the plan in, 17; 
New Testament rooted in, 54-5; 
see New Testament, Bible 
Opportunities, outstanding, 224-8 
Ordinances, church, and Bible, 175 
Oregon trail, 133-4 
Outcastes, elevation of, 177-8 

Pacific Islands, missionaries in. 

Palace, imperial, Bible in, 190-1; 

Happy Childhood in a, 221 
Parables of the Kingdom, 67-70 
Paton, John G., 126-7 
Paul sees plan, 15-6; uses Psalms, 

31; universal gospel, 85 



Index 



'^39 



Pentecost, the prophet of, 48 

Periodicals, importance of, 221; 
need of cooperation in publish- 
ing, 221-2; see Publicity 

Persecution in Madagascar, 129- 
130 

Pershing, General, quoted, 162 

Persona/ism translated into Jap- 
anese, 18-19 

Peshito, 99 

Peter, use of Psalms by, 31 

Philology, debt of, to missionaries 
108-9 

Pieters, Rev. Albertus, 213, 214, 
223 

Pilgrim's Progress ^ The^ 105, 129 

Pilkington, Geo. L., 132 

Plan of the ages, 14-6; in the Law, 
17-22 

Pocket Testament League, 163-4 

Poet the real seer, 26-7 

Poetical books, missionary mes- 
sage of, 26-31 

Prayer of dedication, Solomon's, 25 

Prayers of Christians asked for by 
Chinese, 194-5 

Press, daily, 210; gospel in, 213; 
advertising in, 213-5; see Pub- 
licity 

Printing and the Bible, 142 

Prison reform in Japan, 1 87 

Privilege, channel of blessing, not 
pool of, 20 

Prophets social reformers, 11-2; 
missionary message of, 31-51; 
four, of the eighth century, B.C., 

Psalms mankind's hymnal, 27-8; 
messages of, 28-30; Jesus and, 
30-1; Peter's and Paul's use of, 

^^ 
Public, Christianity develops a 

book-reading, 199-200 

Public libraries and Christianity, 
199-200 

Publicity, see Christian publicity, 
Christian literature. Christian 
periodical literature. Magazine, 
Newspaper, Periodicals, Press 



Quezon quoted, 174 

Ranavalona begins great persecu- 
tion, 129-130 

Raratonga, 126 

Rauschenbusch, quoted, 12, 54 

Reaper, sower and, 73 

Redemption of individual, 40-1 

Reed, Hon. W. B., quoted, 189 

Reform in China and the Bible, 
1 90-1 

Reformers, the prophets are, 11-2 

Rehgion, Micah's interpretation of 
true, 35 

Repentance proclaimed to all na- 
tions, 81 

Richard, Dr. Timothy, great 
achievement of, 208 

Roberts, Field Marshal Lord, 162 

Roosevelt, Theodore, quoted, 162- 

Ruskin, John, quoted, 104 
Russian Bible Society, 147-8 
Ruth, missionary purpose in, 27 

St. Jerome, Vulgate of, 101-2 

St. John's college, 192-3 

Sale of Bible, 152-4; of Dickens's 

novels, 153; of hymn books, 217 
Samaritan woman, Jesus' talk 

with, 72 
Savage Island, Bible in, 127-8 
Schereschewsky, Bishop, 1 1 i^^-G 
Scotch Bible Society, 148; Bibles 

for soldiers, 161 
Scotch highlands, Bible schools in, 

146 
Script, see Alphabet 
Sectarianism and Bible societies, 

145 
Seer, poet the real, 26-7 
Septuagint, 14, 96 
Sins, see National sins 
Slavic version, 109 
Social implications of the Apoc- 
alypse, 91-3 
Soldiers, distribution of Bible to, 

160-4; welcome Testament, 163 
Sons, God's true, 58-9 



240 



The Bible and Missions 



Soothill quoted, 9 

Soul, enlarging a people's, 108 

South India, Syrian Christians of, 
99-100 

Sower and reaper, 73 

Stone that became a mountain, 
46-7 

Strategy of Bible translation, 138 

Subordination of all else to King- 
dom, 69 

Suffering servant, vision of, 38; 
Jeremiah type of, 39 

Syriac version, 97, 99-100 

Syrian Christians, 99-100 

Syrian maid, captive, 26 

Syrian missions, monuments of, 

lOI 

Tahiti, labors of Henry Nott, 125- 
6; Bible in, 182-3 

Tao, Yung, Chinese philanthro- 
pist, 158-9; quoted, 191 

Teaching church, 80 

Tenney quoted, 171, 199-200 

Text-books, preparation of, and 
demand for books, 204-5; ^^d 
new industries, 205; printing 
Chinese, 225 

"Thanksgiving," hunting for, 107 

Tilak, N. V., quoted, 218 

Today, Isaiah's challenge for, 37; 
Habakkuk's message for, 42-3; 
Jonah's message needed, 50-1 

Tolstoi's works in Japanese, 21 1-2 

Tongue, every man in his own, 
96-138; see Language 

Travels of the Book, the, 141-1 65 

Tract societies, work of, 206-7 

Translation, Bible, see Bible trans- 
lation 

Travancore, Maha-Rajahof, quot- 
ed, 177 

Tree, Leaves of, 19S-228 



Triumph of the Kingdom, 70 
Tsin, Wen Shih, quoted, 193 
Tsu, Yu-Yue quoted, 193-4 
Turkish version, 137 

Uganda, Pilkington of, 132; trans- 
formation of, 179-80 

Ulfilas, version of, 102-3 

United States, Bible recognized by 
founders, 150-1; Bible and Con- 
stitution of, 172-3 

Universal gospel, 85 

Universality of mission of Jesus 
55-6 

Vedder, Henry C, quoted, 1 1 1 
Verbeck, Dr. G. T., 118, 119 
Versions of Bible, see under vari- 
ous languages 
Victoria, Queen, quoted, 173 
Von Dobschiitz quoted, 170 
Vulgate of St. Jerome, 101-2 

Waiting, watchful, 68-9; how pass 

the night, 69-70 
Wasaka, MurataandAyabe, 118-9 
Welsh get their Bible, 146 
WilHams, John, 126 
Williams, S. Wells, no, 117 
Wilson, President Woodrow, quot- 
ed, 162 
Witnesses to the ends of the earth, 

11 ' . 
Woman, changing status of, 178-9; 

status in Japan, 186-7 
Women workers in Early Church, 

86 
Wood, General Leonard, quoted, 

162 _ 
World, time of evangelization, 71 
Wyclif, 103-4 

Zechariah, message of, 41 



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